CoLu Week 2016
by GemNika
Summary: June 19, 2016 - June 26, 2016. Event details inside. (Rated M for a reason) [Complete.]
1. Introduction

**Welcome to CoLu Week 2016!**

 _Dragonshost_ is hosting Cobra/Lucy Week yet again!

* * *

 **Dates:** June 19, 2016 - June 26, 2016

 **Prompts:**

Day 1: _Eternity*_

Day 2: _Excuses*_

Day 3: _Online_

Day 4: _Colour_

Day 5: _Answers*_

Day 6: _Raspberry_

Day 7: _Energy_

Day 8 (Bonus): _Aurora_

* * *

This week will obviously be rated M (it's me, we're talking about... Of course that's the rating…). I'm laying down the blanket disclaimer here:

 **Please be aware that this is M for a reason.**

Please note that the three prompts marked with asterisks (*) have been taken down for revision, and will not be replaced within this particular story. I've decided that the continuation pieces from CoLu Week 2015 needed to be paired with the original prompts in their own separate stories. I'm currently in the process of revising all CoLu Week entries marked with an asterisk, and those pages in this story have been replaced with a filler page. When the new, revised stories are posted, those filler pages will be replaced, once again, with redirection pages to help new and old readers find the story they're looking for.

It feels kind of confusing right now, but I swear... it'll make sense soon!

* * *

Keep writing, reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting!

~~GemNika.


	2. Lock and Key

**I'd like to apologize to my readers.**

 _ **This story has been moved to a separate entry on FFnet.**_

You can find this entry under the story _Lock and Key._

Although links don't work on this godforsaken site, here's the URL if you want to go that route instead. Just remove the spaces that are placed after the dots and slashes. Oh my god, I hate how the formatting is on this site.

fanfiction: /s /12639328 /1 /Lock-and-Key

(The link will take you to chapter 1, and is posted as such for those readers who haven't read the story yet. This story is also being updated since it was initially written when I'd first started writing.)

Sorry for the inconvenience. I just really want to make it easier for those of you who end up re-reading these stories, that way you're not forced to click all over the place just to read one story.


	3. Who Says Fairy Tales Are Normal

**I'd like to apologize to my readers.**

 _ **This story has been moved to a separate entry on FFnet.**_

You can find this entry under the story _Who Says Fairy Tales Are Normal?_

Although links don't work on this godforsaken site, here's the URL if you want to go that route instead. Just remove the spaces that are placed after the dots and slashes. Oh my god, I hate how the formatting is on this site.

fanfiction: s / 12556375/ 1/ Who-Says-Fairy-Tales-Are-Normal

(The link will take you to chapter 1, and is posted as such for those readers who haven't read the story yet. If you're caught up from last CoLu Week, then just click on down to the newest chapter.)

Sorry for the inconvenience. I just really want to make it easier for those of you who end up re-reading these stories, that way you're not forced to click all over the place just to read one story.


	4. I'm in Love With a Lunatic

**I'd like to apologize to my readers.**

 _ **This story has been moved to a separate entry on FFnet.**_

You can find this entry under the story _I'm in Love With a Lunatic._

Although links don't work on this godforsaken site, here's the URL if you want to go that route instead. Just remove the spaces that are placed after the dots and slashes. Oh my god, I hate how the formatting is on this site.

fanfiction: s/ 12555031/1 /I-m-in-Love-With-a-Lunatic

(The link will take you to chapter 1, and is posted as such for those readers who haven't read the story yet. If you're caught up from last CoLu Week, then just click on down to the newest chapter.)

Sorry for the inconvenience. I just really want to make it easier for those of you who end up re-reading these stories, that way you're not forced to click all over the place just to read one story.


	5. Colour Me Surprised

**A/N: Hello everyone, and welcome to Day 4! The first story of the week that is** _ **not**_ **a continuation of last year! Wewt!**

 **I saw this prompt on tumblr and decided that there just** _ **had**_ **to be a CoLu story for it. I will say that I didn't follow the prompt entirely, because my head just ran off once I started outlining, so I hope you all enjoy this.**

 **Here's a little College AU for you all!**

 **So, without further ado, I give you...**

 **Day 4: Colour**

* * *

 _ **Colour Me Surprised**_

* * *

There were a great many things that Erik 'Cobra' Vivas knew. It was a requirement of the highest marked student in Caelum University, not just in his year or in his major, but across the board. If asked what one should wash a solution of diethyl ether with to extract isobutyric acid, he could instantly say three 10 mL washes of water, with a further explanation that isobutyric acid will enter the aqueous layer and wash off of the organic layer of diethyl ether.

The problem with being at Caelum University, aside from the fact that he really just hated mostly everyone there, was that they were severely lacking in an organic chemistry program. He loved the professors there, the two that weren't complete bumbling morons, because they made sure to challenge him at every opportunity. But there just wasn't anything he could do about the lack of a graduate program that he really needed. Yes, he was only eighteen. He'd finished his dual major and gotten his fancy degrees, but there was still more shit he had to do.

And that was why he'd finally just gotten over it and moved away from home, the only place he'd ever known as one being his fucking dorm room that was, thankfully, housing only himself. Really, leaving the damn country wasn't that much of a tearjerker, considering the shitty childhood he'd had in Caelum. He would miss his grandmother, but that's what phones were for.

And so, partway through the fall semester, because the starting dates were different in Fiore from what he was accustomed to, Erik found himself glaring at the Fine Arts building before him with his lip curling in disgust.

Art.

It was something he'd never found time (or cared) to appreciate, and the people that dared to call themselves artists, more often than not, were total fucking lunatics.

Hell, the multi-coloured hair of six women in a row that passed him while he started walking inside was enough for him to decide right then and there that the stereotypes were just fucking true. They existed for a damn reason.

The schedule he'd signed up for, with graduate classes that were supposed to fill him up and put him on the brink of insanity by week's end - because there was just no way in fucking hell he could manage having any free time - only to start all over again the next week, was in shambles.

He'd already gone to Student Services, spoken with his advisor - the little bald-headed prick that he was - had a meeting with the Head of the Science Department as well as the Dean of Graduate Studies, and they'd all told him the same thing. They were working on getting the problem resolved. Because Erik had been smart enough to print out the screenshots of his registration, he'd had the ammunition to throw at them that, no, he was not so fucking inept that he could have somehow clicked the wrong thing and chosen an art class instead of the one-thirty lecture he'd needed.

He was also not stupid enough to click the College of Arts tab instead of Arts and Sciences.

In the event that he _was_ that fucking dumb, he was positive that the word _chemistry_ looked a whole lot fucking different from _art_. And _Advanced Organometallic Compounds 6924_ sure as shit did not resemble _Advanced Painting 6477_.

He was just a little unnerved that there was a graduate course for painting.

Still, the people down in Financial Aid had decided that they would grant him a waiver on his tuition for the sixth class because of the fuck-up. His desired class was actually less expensive by two hundred dollars, somehow, so he'd paid for that and they were waiting on whether or not to collect the excess funds.

But still, he had a class to get to, as much as he loathed the idea of being locked in a room with a bunch of fucking artsy dunces that didn't have any skills or intelligence outside of throwing paint on a piece of canvas and calling it pretty when really, it looked like a toddler shit all over it then murdered the fucking family cat. Twice.

This was going to kill his fucking soul, he already knew it.

Every piece of 'artwork' he passed was ludicrously abstract. Okay, so there were some decent landscapes, but really… He could just go to the store and buy a fucking Thomas Kinkade calendar if that was what he wanted to look at.

The small consolation in it all was that he'd been able to meet with the professor, Doctor Reedus Jonah, and the guy totally understood the shit situation he'd been sucked into. All Erik had to do was show up and make an attempt until things were sorted out, and he wouldn't make a fuss.

That was fine with him.

Hell, he could probably draw figures of molecules and paint equations. That would be interesting, he guessed.

Just as he rounded a corner from the elevator on the fourth floor, he paused in his step as a busty blonde came rushing down the hall and bumped into his shoulder. She stopped only two steps later and turned to give him a small smile, and his eye narrowed at the sight of her overly large sunglasses.

"I'm-"

"You people are all fucking morons," he growled. "Take off your goddamn glasses inside, then maybe you'd be able to see where the fuck you're going."

Her smile faltered as he brushed past. "... Sorry..."

Erik rolled his eye while storming down the hall toward room 437. The professor was already there, and he simply smiled at the angry student and nodded to an easel in the back of the class. Really, that was where Erik had been planning on going anyway. The last thing he needed was anyone else being behind him and seeing that he was, for the first time in his school career, slacking the hell off in a class.

The last quarter hour before the class began ticked by and Erik was left glaring at the easel that blocked his view of the class around him.

Twenty minutes into the lecture that he was studiously ignoring in favor of reading the textbook for his next class - which was more like reading it a second time, since he'd already gone through this one in particular during his second year back in Caelum in his spare time - and the door to the class quietly opened.

Dr. Reedus, as he insisted they call him, paused in his speech and Erik frowned when he heard quiet murmurs from his classmates.

" _Sunglasses is here?"_

" _Oh shit, we're all screwed this semester."_

" _Oh my god, I love her artwork!"_

" _I know. Can you believe she-"_

"Here's your spot, Lucy," Dr. Reedus said quietly. "If you need to sit closer to the front, please let me know."

"Well, there's a door back here," she said with a sweet smile. "I can use that. Sorry for interrupting the lecture. It won't happen again."

Erik frowned as the professor guided the busty blonde that had nearly bowled his ass over out in the hallway to the seat right next to him. Her sunglasses were still on. Sure, there were plenty of windows letting natural light in, and on a bright day it might get a little uncomfortable, but the day was overcast at best.

There was literally _no_ fucking reason for the blonde to wear the shit.

And damnit, he couldn't help but hate her a little more just because she looked like the typical cheerleader. Too-tight jeans that might as well have been painted on. A black tube top that bared her perfectly flat stomach and a little belly ring. Long straight golden hair hanging down around her shoulders, but not for long as she pulled the hair tie from her wrist and tossed it up into a messy bun.

Still, he went back to reading his book and ignored everything around him until it was time for them to, apparently, paint something. Or, at least, they were supposed to start sketching out their ideas before moving to the canvas.

At the quick nod from the instructor, he sighed and closed his textbook, then pulled out the sketch pad he'd bought simply because it had been on sale - and he was a stickler for being prepared.

Erik wasn't an artist by any stretch of the imagination.

His most critically acclaimed piece of art was a stick figure, named H3, anger-banging an acetic acid formula, with a thought bubble of _'Makes me cooh!'_ above it. It was apparently not as funny as he'd thought when he'd spray-painted the shit on his professor's office door. But really, that was what the guy got for trying to give him a ninety-four on the midterm because Erik had corrected his incompetent ass and written the proper questions in place of the poorly worded ones then gave the answers to both the written questions, and the shitty ones.

What he hadn't been expecting was for little miss Blondie to drop her pencil sharpener. The room was silent except for the quiet scratching of graphite over paper, so the little plastic sharpener was like a gunshot ringing out in the room. Still, Erik wasn't moving a damn muscle to help her when she bent down to pick it up from where it had bumped into his shoe. Really, he was tempted to throw the thing across the room, but that would have just been childish.

When she grabbed his ankle, however, he was more than prepared to kick her in the face.

"What the fuck?" he hissed, glaring down at the blonde while her fingers trailed over his shoe and finally landed on the sharpener.

"Sorry," she muttered. Once she was sitting upright in her chair, the blonde frowned and turned toward him. "I ran into you in the hallway…"

Her voice was so fucking sweet, he felt the sudden need to run down to the clinic and inject himself with insulin. _'Might as well just have downed all of Willy Wonka's creepass choco-river.'_

"Right?"

"Yeah," Erik muttered. "So glad you could figure that out."

"You're kind of an asshole," she sighed while sharpening her pencil. "But…"

He glared at the blonde when she turned a gentle smile toward him.

"We didn't really get off on the right foot."

"More like the left, you clumsy ditz," he grumbled.

"Mm-hmm," she laughed. "So, anyway, I'm sorry about that. I didn't see you."

"Like I said before. Take off the stupid fucking glasses inside, and maybe it'd help you see better."

Her face fell and she frowned before turning back to her sketch book. "It really wouldn't."

"You do realize they're supposed to be used _outside_ right?" he sneered. "As in, to protect your eyes from the sun."

"I don't really have that problem."

"No, because I'm sure you sleep with the stupid fucking things on. Wear them at night, too. Lock the Kardashians up, because Blondie over here is taking the nation by fucking storm with her stupid, way-too-fucking-big for her goddamn face, glasses."

"Well, I need them," she whispered. "And Dr. Reedus is watching you, so you should get back to work."

"You're not even looking at me," Erik countered. "How would you know if I'm working or not? Those things are cutting off at least thirty percent of your peripheral vision."

"Your pencil isn't moving," she answered. "I'd hear it."

"Right," he snorted. However, when he looked up, he saw that the professor was, in fact, watching him. And he didn't look happy. Erik was just trying to get through the class without being a thorn in anyone's side, but really… The shit this woman was doing just irked him to no fucking end. In the orphanage, they'd gotten _some_ manners beaten into them by the old bastard that ran the place.

" _Don't wear a hat or sunglasses inside. Makes you look like a criminal."_

" _Don't take the last piece of food, or you're selfish."_

" _Don't stand on street corners or in doorways, or you'll look like a damn loafer."_

" _Gentlemen don't bathe in cologne. If you put too much on, I'll beat your ass, boy."_

Some of it was no-brainer shit, but most of the garbage that old man had rattled off while whipping Erik and the others with switches he'd made them get was just old-fashioned.

Still, he went back to his work. Ignoring the blonde for as long as he possibly could.

And then, when Dr. Reedus came by to check on their sketches and see how things were coming along - where he'd gotten quite the chuckle over Erik's piss-poor drawing of two moles sitting in a one liter beaker - the maroon-haired teen looked over curiously to see what she had drawn.

Not a goddamn thing, apparently. She'd just written a bunch of words in her sketch book that he finally realized was actually just a spiral notebook. Probably fucking love notes to her jock of a boyfriend. And even then, Dr. Reedus seemed to be more than pleased with what he saw.

As soon as they were given instructions to continue working on their sketches, Erik glared at her. And then he lucked out when their professor was called out of the room. Once he was gone, everyone began talking quietly, just loud enough that he knew they wouldn't really be paying attention to what he was about to say.

"What, you're too good for this shit?" Erik scowled.

"Excuse me?"

"These bullshit sketches we're doing. You're too good to do it like the rest of us?" Hey, he didn't want to be there, but he was at least putting the pencil to paper and drawing _something_. She was actually paying for this class, and she was doing less than him.

"I can't sketch with pencil," she answered. "When we get to paint, then I'll paint, but until then… Dr. Reedus already knows, and he says I just have to write essays when it comes time to turn in sketches for an assignment."

"That's bullshit," Erik sneered. "You-"

"You're new here, aren't you."

"... So?"

She sighed and turned toward him, setting down her notebook and pencil. "My name is Lucy, by the way."

"I really don't give a fuck. I'm not planning on being in this pathetic excuse for a class much longer than I have to."

"You're not… an art student."

"Far fucking from it," Erik spat. "My major is actually worthwhile. I'll be able to contribute a whole lot more to society than drawing pretty pictures."

"What's your major?"

"Organic Chemistry."

"Hm, a science kid," Lucy nodded. "So, you're pretty good at it then. Know a lot of those fancy science words in latin that no one else understands?"

"Sure," Erik replied. His eye narrowed when she reached up to toy with her glasses, and then they were finally removed.

And that was when he felt his stomach scrambling right out of his ass and eating through the floor beneath him, guilt consuming the empty space left behind. The irises of her suddenly revealed eyes were a strange, nearly golden colour washed in a minty green. He couldn't see her pupils under the milky quality that washed over what he finally realized were unseeing eyes.

"Congenital amaurosis," Lucy said, listening to the sudden intake of breath from the student next to her. "I was born blind. So, no. It's not that I'm 'too good' to sketch things in pencil. I quite literally can't do it. I can't feel the lines."

"Y-You're… Oh, fuck me…"

"It's also why I ran into you in the hallway," she continued. "I didn't see you there, and I was distracted on the phone so I didn't hear you either."

"Shit, I'm uh…" He winced as she put her glasses back on.

"Don't apologize just because you pity me," Lucy said while turning back to the essay she was working on.

Erik cringed when the door to the classroom opened, revealing Dr. Reedus and the Head of the Science Department, Dr. Precht. A single nod from both professors and Erik was all but vaulting from his seat to get away from the extremely unfortunate fuck-up he'd made while talking to the blonde. Hopefully, they would give him some fabulous news. Like the fact that he was free from the art class and he could finally just attend the class he wanted.

Then again, by the looks on their faces, it wasn't looking so good.

* * *

Two months later, Erik was still in _Advanced Painting 6477_. Apparently, he had enrolled after the add/drop grace period, and there was no way in hell he was going to have an Incomplete or a Withdrawal on his transcript. That shit was perfect, and he wasn't going to fuck it up now because of the administration being fucking retarded. So, Erik had gone another route.

Against the advisement of everyone he came in contact with, Erik added another class to his already extraordinarily full course load. _Advanced Organometallic Compounds_ was now filling up the only free time Erik had, at seven in the morning on Fridays. He didn't get out of class until ten at night on Thursdays, and that was supposed to be his time to sleep in. At least now, he wouldn't be tempted to slack off, much like the idiot that was his roommate in the dorm.

Gajeel Redfox was going to make Erik go insane. He was sure of it. The only consolation was that the Architecture and Engineering major was quiet. The times he was loud, he was almost always on his way out of the room anyway and in the process of yelling about someone named Bunny Girl being a fucking psycho.

In that two months' time, Erik found himself utterly flummoxed by the blonde he was still sitting next to. He'd watched her painting in class, and he just couldn't figure out how the hell she managed to get the shit on the canvas to look like anything, when she had never seen anything as a point of comparison.

She used a combination of her fingers on the canvas and a paintbrush, sometimes just her fingers, but what he found at the end, when she was finally finished, was just fucking impressive. They always had simplistic subjects, a shadowed image that was insanely contrasted by bright splashes of colour in the background. But even the colors in the background were arranged in a way that it actually made an intensely beautiful picture with clear delineations between different objects.

Erik had never really been interested in art. Science was where the real beauty in the world lay, at least to him. But he was driven by the quest for knowledge. He wanted to know everything, and that was why, when Dr. Reedus had mentioned an idea he'd been toying with of people in the class partnering up to work together, as an experiment to try and meld their own creativity with another person's - because really, in the real world, there might be a time where they wouldn't be the only person working on something, and they needed to play well with others - Erik hadn't fought it.

Nor did he fight it when the pairings were decided a week later. In fact, he'd asked after the class where the pairings were revealed was finished, if he could work with Lucy. Their names were the only ones that weren't called. Erik knew his wasn't called because there was an even number in the class, and he would have been a third person in a group. Also, he still didn't want to be there, and the professor was really trying to help him out because of the scheduling mishap that he'd been dragged into.

Dr. Reed had been on the verge of telling him no, because Lucy couldn't work with someone in that particular instance - since she couldn't see what they were doing - but Erik had done what he always did. He convinced Dr. Reedus that he was right.

It was really just a matter of reminding the professor that he was, in fact, a science major, and research was something he loved. Erik had, begrudgingly, admitted that he wanted to know how she painted without being able to see, and how she could make artwork really come alive. He couldn't paint to save his damn life, unless someone wanted a picture that looked like it was done by a third-grader, but something he'd said had convinced the professor that it was a good idea. Why Erik had said it, he still wasn't sure, but it had worked.

" _I hate art, Dr. Reedus. It's pointless, but what she does… I can't understand it. Besides, if you pair me up with her, then she won't be either left out just because she can't see, or stuck with someone that's more interested in how famous she apparently is in this place than doing the work. I can't promise I'll give you anything worth looking at, or that I won't ruin what she paints with my piss-poor attempt at this shit, but I'll give it a shot. I really will do the work for it though, since it's not just me getting a grade on this. I just can't promise you won't want to punch me in the asshole for desecrating her work with my paintbrush."_

His words had made it seem like he really cared about the woman, which he didn't. It was more of the fact that he was constantly hearing other students in the class, and in the damn building, and across the fucking campus when he really listened, talk about Lucy. Some were focused on how she looked, not knowing that she was blind. Others were amazed by her art, some knowing she was blind while others didn't. And then there were the people that he'd caught conversations from about spending time with her, and how sweet and funny she was.

Stories about Lucy laughing so hard beer came out of her nose at a party. How she had rescued a small animal and took it to a veterinarian, only to find out that she'd picked up a baby porcupine and it was trying to make her its mother; from what he'd heard, she didn't keep the porcupine. The time she had been coerced into doing a handstand and broke her wrist, and how her older brother had taken it upon himself to beat someone named Natsu into the next century for it.

Erik met Natsu a week after hearing that particular story, and he completely understood the sentiment. He couldn't understand how the idiot was in college to begin with, but apparently sports scholarships were helpful things.

And so, Erik found himself walking into an art studio two miles away from campus to meet up with Lucy. She didn't seem too pleased by the prospect of working with him, he'd seen the small frown of disapproval before she'd sighed and nodded her understanding that it was mandatory, but he was banking on the tidbit of information that he'd heard about her. Lucy was a sweetheart that couldn't hold a grudge.

What he hadn't been expecting was to find his roommate kneeling on the floor and smoothing out a sheet of plastic, then laying a large section of canvas over it and setting paint cans on the corners.

"Gajy," Lucy called out from the back, carrying another two cans of paint and holding several paintbrushes under her chin. "Little help?"

"Bunny, yer fuckin' ridiculous," he laughed. "I'm here to do the heavy lifting, so put that shit down before you break a toe or something."

She paused in her step, her smile widening as the weight was suddenly lifted from her hands. She dropped the brushes to her hand, then looped her arm around one of her brother's muscular arms, letting him lead her to the canvas. "I'm pretty sure you're here to check out this Cobra guy I got paired up with."

Erik frowned at the sudden use of that nickname. It was one he had intentionally not used around anyone once he came to Fiore University. Back in Caelum, he'd gotten quite the reputation under that particular moniker, and he hadn't wanted it to follow him in a new fucking country.

Lucy paused and slowly tilted her head to one side. "He's here," she said.

"Huh?" Gajeel turned toward the door to find the one-eyed, maroon-haired roommate that he both loathed and loved having around staring back at him. "How the hell do you do that?"

"I smelled him," Lucy giggled. "Hi, Cobra."

"It's Erik," he scowled while walking further into the studio. "Don't call me… _that_."

"O-Oh," Lucy whispered, a sheepish smile pulling at her lips. "Sorry, I heard everyone called you that, and I just… uh… sorry."

Gajeel scowled down at the shorter man, crossing his arms over his chest. " _You're_ her fuckin' partner?"

Erik shrugged. "Yep. And you're her brother?"

"Yep."

"Well…" Lucy stepped up to Gajeel's side, quietly nudging his ribs with her elbow. "This is kinda awkward."

"Bunny, I'm stay-"

"Gajeel Redfox," she warned.

"Bunny Heartfilia-Redfox," he growled right back.

"You are _not_ staying just so you can glare at Erik the whole time. And don't even try to tell me you won't because I know you will, since your face is permanently set in 'angry dragon mode'. Besides, you've got a date, and I know that Bickslow is gonna come running down here if you're late just to see what's taking you so long, and then it'll turn into a whole clusterfuck of-"

"Fuckin' breathe!" Gajeel shouted over her, pressing his hand over her lips. He drew back a moment later with a yelp. "Who the fuck told you to start biting people?!"

Lucy's eyes narrowed. "Don't cut me off. Now, where was I?"

"Bickslow and a clusterfuck," Erik supplied, blinking in surprise when she smiled at him before her face morphed back into what had to be, hands-down, the scariest fucking scowl he'd ever seen. The old man in the orphanage didn't have shit on the five-foot-three blonde. Erik's grandmother would be proud to see that level of anger sitting on someone's face.

"Right, a clusterfuck," Lucy nodded. "You missed your last date with him because you had midterms last week, so you can't skip out on this one. Besides, you're all sweaty and you need to go shower-"

"Bunny-"

"- And I don't care if the two of you are just gonna end up naked and sweaty and covered in jizz and lube and probably some chocolate or some other weird shit-"

"Oh my god," Gajeel whispered, rolling his eyes. "Shut up…"

"Because he's a sweetheart, and he deserves a _nice_ date with your ass. And goddamnit Gajeel, stop rolling your eyes at me. You know I'm right. Now, get moving before I call up Papa and tell him that you're not treating your boyfriend right."

Gajeel's jaw snapped shut and he glared at the blonde. "You tell my old man anything, and I'm telling him and your mom about this dickhole being your partner."

"I already did," Lucy smirked. "Mama says she loves you, by the way. And she said to call home every once in a while."

"Damnit," he grumbled. "I'll call her on my way then." Finally, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. There was just no winning this, and he knew it. "You've got everything you need?"

"Yep," she smiled, sighing when she felt his lips on her forehead. "Love you, Gajy."

"Yeah, love ya too, Bunny," he whispered. His crimson eyes lifted to glare venomously at his roommate. "I find out you made her cry again, and so fuckin' help me, I - FUCK! Stop fuckin' biting me!"

Lucy grinned up at her stepbrother. "Be nice. You're the one that has to share a room with him," she laughed. It had been pretty easy to figure out that her partner and her stepbrother's roommate were the same person. There were only so many 'constantly pissed Organic Chem majors' and she'd heard Erik talking in the background once while she was on the phone with Gajeel. "Now get going."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I get it."

Erik watched the hulking man with crimson eyes stalk out of the studio then hop on a motorcycle and drive away. A more than awkward hush fell over the room, and he slowly turned back toward Lucy to find her kneeling on the floor by the paint cans. Even without being able to see, she was still able to get them open and lined up where they were needed.

"If you want to spare your clothes," she said softly, working on another can, "Then you might want to grab a smock from the wall. We're gonna be getting a little messy."

"Great," he mumbled. Really, he wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he knew he would be finding out relatively soon just how this was going to work. And he was more than ready to figure out how the hell Lucy could do what she did.

* * *

The pair had decided that, with Erik's insane schedule, they would work together on Fridays. They only had three weeks to complete the project, which meant that the entire day was spent - once he was finished with his ungodly (according to Lucy) morning class - in the studio. They wouldn't leave until well into the wee hours of the morning, with Erik having offered on the first Friday when they realized how late it was, to drive her back to her dorm.

And, on the final day, they were done around five o'clock. The painting was weird as hell, and he felt like a bit of an ass for not really contributing a whole lot, aside from having Lucy hand him paint and a brush, then showing him what patterns he was supposed to paint in the borders. Somehow though, it had turned out looking like fucking art, and something that he wasn't all that opposed to looking at in general.

And, in the three weeks that he and Lucy had been working on their project, with Erik running on mostly caffeine the entire time as it was anyway, he'd completely forgotten to try and figure out just what it was that made her so fucking good at this. Well, it wasn't so much that he'd forgotten, but he just hadn't been able to, and that bothered him.

So, with the paint drying on the canvas and Lucy standing at the sink washing out brushes, he made his way over and just decided to fucking ask her. There wasn't any harm in it, and he was sure that plenty of people asked her anyway.

"Lucy."

"Hm?"

"How is it you can paint without being able to see a fucking thing?"

"I told you already, Erik," she laughed. "And I know you watched me painting. I just feel my way."

"Right, and that would suffice as an answer if I was anyone else," he chuckled, pulling the brushes from her hands and setting them in the water to soak for a minute. "But I don't mean how do you get the shit on the canvas."

She frowned then, her smile slowly wilting into a small downturn to her lips. "Then what? There's nothing more to it."

"I mean, you've never seen a thing in your life," he sighed. "But you can paint as though you've seen the fucking world. How do you know what colours you're using? Whether they go together, or if they clash when you don't want them to? It just… makes no fucking sense."

He knew, and had figured out for the most part over the past several months of sitting next to Lucy twice a week in their shared class, that she was a smiler. You could tell what she was thinking, to a point, based on how she smiled, if you looked closely enough. And sure, he'd seen quite a few variances of them in the time he'd known her.

He'd seen her giddy, way-too-bright to be real, smile while laughing with her friends out on the streets or walking to class. Her 'Gajeel-only' smile, the one saved for when she was spending time with her stepbrother (Erik was more than thankful that the same woman had not somehow produced both Gajeel and Lucy, because that… he couldn't handle that mental picture). How she smiled while listening to music. The saddened one that would pull her lips up just a little less when something upset her.

But, with all the watching he'd apparently been doing, without realizing it, Erik had never seen this particular smile. It looked just like all the others, except that there was just the faintest hint of a blush on her cheeks. She shied away from him a little, turning her head in the other direction.

"I, um… No one's ever asked me that," she whispered.

"Really?" he frowned. Honestly, that was the first question he thought to ask her, before he'd ever seen what she could do with the shit, he wanted to know how she knew which colour she was grabbing.

"If you're not busy," Lucy said slowly. "I could, um… I could try to show you? We don't have to, since I know you've got other classes to-"

"Let's do it," Erik said, shaking himself free of his shocked stupor. A crash course in blind painting, that would be interesting. Besides, he'd been planning on having the rest of the day for the project anyway, so he was oddly free.

She nodded then grabbed his sleeve and slowly led her partner over to the wall with the latex paints. "Pick two," she said. "Doesn't matter what colour. Then, we'll need some plastic and we should be set."

Erik nodded, more to himself, and pulled two random cans from the shelves. "How much space?"

"Just enough for us." She paused to grab a few towels, tucking them under her arm.

He slowly led her through the studio, to the wall opposite where their project was at - because heaven forbid something happened to it, he was going to fucking cry - then set down the cans. After rolling out a length of plastic on the ground, he knelt down next to the blonde and waited for her to explain what was happening while she opened the cans.

"Okay," Lucy whispered. "Close your eyes, and trust me."

"Why?"

"Well, you can't really 'see' the colours the way I do if your eyes are open," she giggled. "I could blindfold you, but then people might think we're getting kinky."

"Ah," he chuckled. "And stars forbid the sweet Lucy Heartfilia-Redfox is thought to be into kink." The bright flush to her cheeks when she punched his arm, all while still laughing, let him know just a little more about the blonde. Was he really interested in bondage? No. He didn't have time for relationships to begin with, even just physical ones.

"Exactly," she huffed playfully. "I have an image to uphold. My brother is the one that's got the kink-closet."

"I know that's a fucking lie," he laughed. No matter how many piercings the guy had, Gajeel was, apparently, a total fucking softie. Erik had actually been forced to spend an entire night in the library because the guy was serenading his fucking boyfriend. And, according to the whispers in the dorms the next day while the two were passed out in a naked tangle of sheets and limbs, they'd kept up most of the floor with their… lovemaking.

Really, Erik hadn't wanted to know any of it. It was his roommate's life, so whatever. But, what he _really_ hadn't wanted to know was what it sounded like. He'd never heard anyone moaning as loudly as Gajeel and Bickslow had been in the recording taken from the room next to theirs. And he definitely hadn't heard anyone saying 'I love you' so damn much. Then again, Erik had also never needed to beat someone to within an inch of their lives for joking about 'fags', but that day had been the exception.

It was also when he realized that Fiore was definitely different from Caelum. He'd almost believed it was really the same place, considering he'd moved to a country that used the same language. Sure, the streets were different, and the majority of people he came across had a lighter complexion than his own, but he was from the southern coast of Caelum, so he was already darker than most people that had been around him while he'd been in college in the north. The biggest difference though was that the people back in his home country just didn't give a shit about sexuality. He'd never heard a single person being teased for loving whomever they chose, until he came to Fiore. Granted, Erik hadn't been all that focused on relationships as a general rule.

"Yeah," Lucy laughed. "Gajy's too adorable for that nonsense."

"Adorable is the last fucking word I'd use to describe him."

"Because you don't see what I do," she whispered with a tender smile. "Bickslow does though, so all is well with the world."

"Well, help me see how you do, then," Erik whispered, finally closing his eye.

"Trust me?"

"Enough to not be able to see you picking up that fucking butcher knife and slaughtering my ass," he laughed.

"Damn…" She pulled the lid off of one can and tossed it onto the plastic, the metal clattering in the otherwise silent studio. "I guess I'll have to go with plan B."

"Which is?"

Lucy gently placed her hand on his arm, then slid it up to his shoulder. "Answering your question. How I see the colours. How I paint." She smiled and took a slow, deep breath, then continued. "Take your fingers and touch the paint. Swirl it around a little bit."

Erik frowned, but did as she said. He always thought paint was warm, but the sudden chill that crept up his fingers as they dipped into the unknown colour had him internally shivering. He slowly stirred the paint, letting himself just focus on what it felt like on his fingers. That just had to be how Lucy did it. Maybe there was a difference in the consistency of different colours based on their chemical composition. Why he hadn't thought of that before, Erik didn't know.

"What colour do you feel?" Lucy whispered.

"I don't," Erik said, his frown deepening. "It just feels like paint."

"You're thinking too much," she giggled, lightly squeezing his shoulder. "Just feel, Erik."

"Well, maybe if I had a point of comparison," he suggested. "Feel two different kinds, the changes in consistency…"

Her laughter only increased. "Erik, turn off the science."

"But that's what this is about," he replied. "It has to be."

"No… It doesn't. What colour do you _feel_ , Erik?"

His eye slid open in his frustration and he glared down at the can, then the paint on his fingers. "It's green," he muttered.

Lucy shook her head and moved to kneel behind him. Her arm snaked around him, and she gently placed her fingers in the paint can, brushing over his own in passing. "That might be the colour that it is, but what do you feel? Without your sight, there's gotta be a feeling. Something visceral."

"It's just paint," he whispered. "There's nothing visceral about…" He paused and read the label on the can. "Latex paint."

"There's always more beneath the surface," she sighed. Really, it was easier with oil paints, but she didn't want to open those up if she didn't need to. They were a little more expensive than this, after all. "Let's try another one."

Erik reached over and pulled the other can closer, then removed the loosened lid and closed his eye while Lucy dipped her fingers, and his as she grabbed his hand, into the paint. He hadn't been able to see the colour, because he'd been intentionally trying to avoid it. Lucy didn't have the opportunity to cheat and see what the colour really was, so he was going to try it again. Maybe with a hand in two different cans, he would be able to feel the difference between them.

"I feel…" Lucy wiggled the fingers on her left hand, in the second can, humming in contentment. "Winter mornings and hot cocoa."

He frowned, his brow pinching in confusion. "I don't understand," he sighed. "They feel exactly the same."

"No," she giggled. The fingers on her right hand brushed over his knuckles. "This one is the ocean in fall. Like a breeze that carries in on the wind, and you can just smell the freedom." Her other hand moved again. "And this one. It's waking up to the first snow of the season and curling up with hot cocoa. It's warm and soothing, but just a little chilly if you move too far from the cup. Can't you feel it?"

"It's yellow," he whispered as he opened his eye to see the second can. "Most people think of sunshine and happy shit when they see yellow. Or fear."

She couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh at that. Her chin rested on his shoulder as their hands withdrew from the cans. After lifting the towels from the floor by her side, she handed one to Erik while cleaning her hands off. "Maybe that's normal," Lucy mused, "But I've never seen any of those things. I can only judge based on how things sound or smell or taste."

Erik froze in cleaning his hands to see hers, one with yellow fingers and one with green, wrapping around to gently grasp at his towel.

"Or how they feel," Lucy finished as her partially clean fingers brushed over the backs of Erik's hands. She bit her lip and ignored the flush on her cheeks when he stayed silent, but the blonde could feel his gaze weighing on her hands as she used the towel to clean up.

Erik's brow furrowed as he watched her hands deftly moving the towel. He didn't think he would ever be able to do what she did. It wasn't even about painting, but just her day-to-day life. Hell, he'd had a hard enough time adjusting - and getting his license - after the accident that took his right eye. Depth perception was wholly nonexistent in his life by that point, but he made it work somehow.

Just like Lucy did.

She'd just had a lot more time and no other points of comparison. This was what she'd always known, the world without light or sight. But, he was definitely curious, his inner scientist never far behind in any situation. "So," he whispered, "What do you feel when you touch me?"

"Soft hands," she whispered back with a small smile. She couldn't help the sharp intake of breath as his hands turned to let her feel his calloused fingers. "But still strong."

His eye took in the way her fingers slithered over his skin, exploring every little detail she could. He smirked when she applied a little more pressure to his knuckles, feeling the ones he'd broken by getting into fights over the years. He might be a total fucking nerd, and several years younger than the people in his class, but that didn't mean he let anyone push him around for it.

"You're a fighter," Lucy continued. "Or… you just really like punching walls."

Erik chuckled and gently grasped her hands, then lifted them to his chest. He was going to studiously ignore the fact that her overly large bust was pressed against his back, and that her arms were now wrapped around him. "What else?"

Lucy's lips turned down and she tilted her head toward him. "You want me to…" She really made a habit of not touching people unless they gave her permission. Most people didn't like randomly getting groped just so that she could 'see' who she was talking to. Hell, the only way she knew who some people were was by their hands, because that was all they were comfortable allowing her to touch.

"I want to know how you see me," Erik replied, smiling at the confusion in her voice and sitting plainly on her face. "Will you tell me?"

Lucy gave him a shy smile, nodding while her hands slowly glided up from where he'd rested them on his chest to his throat. "So far, I hear anger when I talk to you. And pain. But you're curious about everything. I guess that's part of being a super genius scientist?"

Erik chuckled softly, his eye closing as her fingers paused to feel his throat while he laughed. The tips danced across his chin and up to the dimples on his cheeks.

"You have a nice smile," Lucy whispered, her fingers gliding over his lips. On her next breath, she found an answering smile on her face. "I smell... coffee at two in the morning. Y'know, when you're pulling an all-nighter?"

"Coffee, huh?" he chuckled. "I practically live on the stuff, so that's not surprising."

"Well, this is like…" She bit her lip indecisively, then decided to just go with it. Erik had let her touch him to find out what she saw, and this one thing - while she didn't do it that often, because it weirded people out a little bit - was pretty damn helpful.

He gulped when Lucy's nose pressed against the side of his neck, then slid up to just behind his ear while her fingers pushed into his hair. He felt her small, shallow breaths as though they were the only thing keeping his blood pumping, easily letting her tilt his head to the side so she had better access.

"That's it," Lucy whispered into his ear. "It's your skin."

"My… skin?" he asked shakily. He felt her lips pulling up into a smile against his earlobe, and nearly failed to suppress a groan when she spoke again.

"Your skin is like coffee," she said softly. "You know how great a cup of coffee smells when you really need it? Like the heavens just opened up and dropped the Holy Grail on your desk. It's sweet to give you a sugar rush, strong with more caffeine than is probably healthy, but… Addicting."

Erik was sure, right then and there, that Lucy was going to kill him if she didn't stop whispering in his ear. Sure, she had no idea his ears were so fucking sensitive, but between her silky voice, her lips, and feeling her body against him and her fingers dragging through his hair, he was on the verge of begging her to put him out of his misery.

"Coffee and cherries," Lucy grinned, finally moving back to resting her chin on his shoulder.

"Ch-Cherries?" Erik was internally cursing the stammering buffoon that had taken control of his body. At least he wasn't just cumming everywhere like a little bitch. That, he would kill himself over.

She nodded, her fingers twirling little sections of his soft, spiked hair. "Your hair feels like cherries. Dark and sweet."

Lucy's fingers finally left his hair to touch his ears, and she froze. A frown swept away her smile when she felt the pointed tips that were so different from anything she'd ever come across before.

"Guess you never pictured that…" Really, he was more than ready to throw in the towel. Whispering in his ear was one thing, but touching both of them… Damn, was it amazing. He was surprised that he wasn't just a panting, bumbling mess right then and there. Hell, occasionally when he needed to work himself off, he'd grab his _own_ fucking ear and tease the tip of it. That shit got him every time.

Her smile returned once again at the slightly embarrassed tremor in his voice. "I never pictured anything, Erik. I didn't think you'd let me do this."

"Elective surgery," he chuckled. "I had a thing for elves when I was younger…" And really, he'd gotten it done only six months before moving to Fiore. He still had a thing for elves, but he wasn't going to admit that shit to anyone. Or the fact that, while severely sleep-deprived he'd made the decision to have surgery to get fucking elf ears because he wanted to be one. Nope, that was going to the grave with him. Then again, maybe it wasn't... He'd pretty much just told Lucy that damn secret. _'Fuck...'_

"Such a nerd," Lucy giggled. She moved on from his ears to his eyebrows, down the length of his straight, thin nose, then paused and gasped when she felt the scar running onto his cheek. One hand tenderly moved up to feel his closed eye without a scar, that it was still there, while the other pressed lightly to the scarred skin only to find his right eye was missing.

"They're not joking when they say to wear goggles in the lab…"

"O-Oh?" she asked.

"Yep, sophomore year in high school. Some asshole switched the vials out while I wasn't looking. I ended up mixing potassium with water, and… Boom. Glass right in the eye."

"Well, shit. They couldn't save it?"

He shrugged then. It was weird as hell having someone else touch his face, especially his scar. No one touched him, and he normally didn't want them to. But, he'd offered to let Lucy do it, and he was finding it oddly relaxing that she just kept running her fingers over his scar and empty socket. Maybe because it was her way of studying things, and it called to his inner knowledge-seeker. "The guy that ran the orphanage said he wasn't made of money, so he wouldn't sign anything that was insanely expensive. The doctors had to just sew it up after getting the glass out."

Her mouth clamped shut and her hands dropped from his face. "You were… in an orphanage?"

"Yeah," he shrugged again. "My parents got killed in a car accident when I was five. The cops came to my Granny's house and told her, and she just handed me over to 'em. She was too old to take care of me for more than a few hours, so it made sense."

And really, he'd gotten to see the old woman again a few years after he was put in the orphanage. She was a crass, pink-haired terror, and probably the reason he was such an asshole most of the time, but his 'Granny Porly' came to visit at least once a month when she was able to make the trip.

It wasn't a matter of him being unloved, because he knew that she cared. She just couldn't care for a little kid properly full-time. And, when he was a little older, and had asked to come home with her, she would just scowl down at him and say that her home was too small. She wasn't going to force him to sleep on the couch when there was a perfectly good bed right there in the orphanage.

The fact that he'd lost his eye and the man running the orphanage hadn't wanted to foot the bill to try and save it at all had her nearly ripping the bastard's head off, but it had also been when she finally told Erik that he could come live with her.

"That's…" Lucy's frown deepened. Really, she had no idea what to say to it all.

"Eh, it was for the best. I got to go live with her eventually though, after she found out what happened with my eye. She's the reason I'm even able to pay for college in the first place."

"She sounds sweet," Lucy whispered.

A sharp bark of laughter spilled past his lips. "Granny Porly looks like she sucked on a lemon, and she fucking hates everything," he laughed. "But yeah, she's sweet… Sorta."

Lucy sighed as he lifted her hands to his face again. She retraced the lines of his face, trying to memorize just what he felt like, and that was when she found herself frowning again. "Erik…"

"Hm?"

"You've only got one eye."

"Right."

"How, uh… How have you been driving me home?"

"You mean because I have no depth perception with only one eye?"

"Y-Yeah." The dark chuckle that escaped him had her shuddering.

"Well, back home, I was called Cobra," he whispered. "I won't go into why, but I had enough of a reputation that the guy at the DMV was on the verge of pissing himself when I said I wasn't leaving until I had my license back."

"The bullshit was strong with you that day, wasn't it," she snorted.

"Yes, and no," he grinned. "I was willing to do what I threatened, but I was lying when I said I would have enjoyed it."

"That's just… scary."

"Which is why I don't want people here calling me Cobra," he sighed. "New country, new start. All that matters is my perfect transcript here."

Her thumb ran over the empty socket again, and a serene smile pulled at her full lips. "You see more than you let on, don't you?"

"I only have one eye," he chuckled, turning to look at her. "I see worse than most people."

"Usually, it's the ones that have the worst eyesight that see the most…" Her fingers slid down to his lips, and she gasped as he grabbed her hand and his lips pressed against hers.

Erik wanted a whole lot more than the piddly little kiss he'd gotten, but really, he had no fucking clue what he was doing. He'd never made time for relationships, far too focused on his studies to care about it to begin with, and while it had served him well, because he hadn't been distracted, he was wishing he'd had a little more experience right then. _'Eighteen. Never been kissed. God that's lame…'_

Then again, based on the startled squeak that came from the blonde, neither had she. And he already knew that she was a few years older than him.

Lucy unconsciously followed as his lips left hers, her eyes slowly opening. "Wh-What was that for?"

Erik found the flush on her cheeks fucking adorable. "Just trying to see things your way," he smirked.

"O-Oh…"

It was while he was looking into her unseeing eyes as a heavy silence fell over the studio that he found himself getting lost in them. Lucy was an anomaly, something he'd been more than happy to study, but the sudden burning in his gut and the way his heart stuttered just a little while looking at the milky copper orbs had him wanting to know more about her. Not as an experiment or to sate his thirst for knowledge. _'Fuck me, she's beautiful…'_

His hand slowly lifted to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing just under her eye while he turned his body to fully face her. "I never realized how beautiful your eyes are…"

"... Wh-What?"

"I guess they were supposed to be brown," he whispered. "But they're this strange copper… No…"

Lucy gasped as she felt his calloused thumb tenderly circling beneath her eye. She could hear him grinning as he spoke again. The intrigue in his voice, and a small bit of wonder.

"Oxidized copper," he chuckled. "That's it! A hint of green, pale… Almost glowing…"

Suddenly, Lucy hated that she couldn't see, especially when she lifted her hands to his face once more and felt just how wide his smile was, the deep dimples in his cheeks and the small crinkled corner of his eye.

She'd never had a problem with not being able to see, since it was just the way things were for her. She'd been born this way, and no matter what anyone had said to her about it - the normal childhood teasing that everyone went through to some extent - Lucy hadn't let it affect her. Even Gajeel had teased her for several months when their parents had started dating, but he'd eventually stopped once he realized that Lucy and her mother were going to be a bigger part of his and his father, Metallicana's, lives.

But now, she just wished more than anything that she could see Erik. Just once. "I… don't know what that looks like," she reminded him.

"No, but… What if I could show you?"

She nibbled her lip anxiously. "How?"

"The same way you showed me yellow and green," he chuckled. The idea had formed so quickly, he hadn't a clue where it came from, but they had plenty of time to do it. "Come with me. We've still got paint on our hands."

Lucy nodded, and smiled when she heard him placing the lids back on the cans of paint. She stood along with Erik, letting him lead her over to the sink, then washed her hands while he put the supplies away.

He walked up behind her, chewing his cheek while his arms wrapped around the blonde and his hands joined her soapy ones beneath the running water. Slowly, he took her hands in his and started washing them for her, getting the spots that she had missed before she could finish rinsing her hands.

Lucy bit her lip to hold back a shy smile as his chin rested on her shoulder, much like she had done with him on the floor. "A-All clean?" she whispered as he turned off the water and gently dried her hands.

"Yep." Erik led Lucy over to where they kept their bags, then smirked as she laced her fingers with his while they left the studio. Instead of taking her to his car, he turned right and they walked down the street toward a little shop on the corner.

"What are we doing?"

Erik opened the door and led her inside, heading directly for the counter with the silver-haired clerk standing behind it and giving them a bright smile. "Taste test time," he whispered to the blonde.

"What can I get for you guys today?"

Lucy's smile widened at the sound of Mira's voice. "Ice cream?" she giggled as Erik placed his hand on her lower back.

"Yep," he smirked. He looked over the different flavors that were set out behind the glass, and his eye lit up when he spotted just the one he needed. "This one," he said while pointing to the container.

Mira tilted her head curiously while grabbing a tasting spoon and scooping some onto it.

"I know you like chocolate," he said to the blonde once he had the spoon in his hand, "But it's time for an experiment." Really, he'd discovered Lucy's near obsession with chocolate over the past few months, since she almost always ate a candy bar on the small break they had between the first and second halves of the lecture period.

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "Such a science nerd…"

"Hell yes," he shot back with a proud grin. He pulled his hand from her back and lifted her fingers to the spoon. "But first, you have to touch it."

Lucy laughed again and shook her head in exasperation. Her fingers lightly touched the ice cream and she smirked while saying, "It feels like ice cream."

"Soft and cold, right?"

Lucy frowned at that. "My eyes are cold?"

Neither saw the way Mira's eyes widened as she watched the two of them, finally noticing that Lucy wasn't wearing the sunglasses that she was always sure to keep on while in public. She looked from the sightless blonde to the usually scowling man - even when he stopped in for ice cream, he was scowling - then over to a table that was holding Lucy's brother, Gajeel, and his boyfriend of two years, Bickslow. Every Friday night, the two men would come in for ice cream as part of their date. And this night was no different, except that now they were both intently watching Lucy interacting with Erik.

"First impression," Erik said. "When you don't understand it… Now, taste." He brought the spoon to her lips, watching as he pushed it into her mouth. The way her eyes widened in surprise had him smirking again. "Mint," he whispered. "Chilly, breathtaking…"

Lucy blinked as she bit down into a little bar of dark chocolate, making a small sound of surprise.

"And chocolate to warm you up again."

She swallowed and slowly licked her lips. "This is…"

"Your eyes," he whispered. "What they look like…"

"R-Really?"

"Yep." He paused as she smiled up at him. "And how I feel when I look at them…"

A giddy laugh left the blonde as her cheeks flamed more brilliantly. "What about your eye. What colour is it?"

Before Erik could even look for a flavor of ice cream that reminded him of his own indigo eye, Mira was holding out two tasting spoons with a white and red swirled concoction on them. He narrowed his eye at her too-bright smile, then saw her wink while nodding down to the container it had come from. _'Love Potion #32… Seriously?'_

Deciding to throw caution to the wind, and allow the matchmaking ice cream shop clerk have her way, he took the spoons and handed one to Lucy. "This colour," he said, "According to Mira, here."

Lucy popped the spoon in her mouth, sighing in contentment as she tasted white chocolate and cherry ice cream. She absolutely loved the taste of cherries. While she let the ice cream melt in her mouth, the blonde blinked in surprise at the sudden feel of a heart-shaped chocolate on her tongue. She bit into it, only to taste the sudden burst of cherry that had been encased inside mixing with the ice cream.

"That's definitely it," Erik chuckled after swallowing his own bite. She turned her face up toward his, almost as though she could see him - most likely as a learned habit over the years. "... When I look at you."

The way she blushed even more brightly, and the low curse he heard from her brother a few tables away, along with his boyfriend kicking him under their table to keep him seated, had Erik's smile widening.

"O-Oh," Lucy whispered.

He nibbled his lip for a moment, then took one of her hands in his. "I don't have to get back to doing any homework for a bit, so…"

"So…?"

"Have some ice cream with me?" he whispered.

Lucy very intentionally ignored the fact that she could hear Gajeel grumbling about Erik hitting on his little sister. "Like a… um… a date?"

"Yep," Erik chuckled.

Lucy nodded happily, turning back toward the counter as Erik draped an arm over her shoulder. "I'll have that second one, Mira."

"Mint chocolate chip for me," Erik added with a smirk.

* * *

The semester came to a close, and as the spring semester was under way, Erik and Lucy were in a relationship. He'd decided, much to the blonde's surprise, to lighten his workload and be a normal fucking person for a change by only taking four classes at once instead of his usual six (or, for the previous semester, seven). He had more than enough free time on his hands, but he simply filled that with spending time with Lucy. And, by extension, he spent time with Gajeel and Bickslow.

Things had been a little on the awkward side at first, having his girlfriend's brother as a roommate, and Erik had, in an effort to put the guy at ease and hopefully stop the fucker from teabagging him in his sleep with his nuts painted hot pink to have as evidence the next day, just come clean about whatever the hell her stepbrother and his boyfriend wanted to know.

What were Erik's intentions with Lucy? His snarky reply had been that he wanted to skin her alive and study her. Bickslow had struggled to hold Gajeel back from beating his ass, so Erik waved him off and told him the truth. He wanted to date her, and since he'd never dated anyone before, he was taking his sweet fucking time getting to know her.

Was Erik going to push her into sleeping with him? No. Hell fucking no. He hated admitting it, but he told Gajeel and Bickslow that, yes, he was a damn virgin and just the thought of Lucy even being in just lingerie made him fucking lightheaded. The teasing he'd gone through for the next three days by the two was well deserved, to be honest.

Was he going to agree to meeting Layla and Metallicana? Sure, whenever Lucy offered to have him meet them. He really didn't mind.

What were his parents like? Dead. He really shouldn't have enjoyed the way Gajeel got smacked in the head by Bickslow over that one. So, he'd told the two about his crotchety grandmother, and had mentioned that, should he and Lucy be together long enough, he'd introduce the blonde to her.

What did he like to do in his free time? He'd answered honestly by saying that he never had free time, which Gajeel had backed up, but also added that his only free time was spent with Lucy. Several months later, it was still mostly true. If he wasn't busy with homework or with Lucy, then Erik was reading. Or experimenting on something.

What's the craziest thing he'd ever done? He had sworn Gajeel and Bickslow to secrecy, then told them about the time that he'd dragged a guy through the school parking lot, butt naked, tied him to a pole with barbed wire, and then had a snake he'd 'borrowed' from a local pet store poison the fuck out of him. It was how he'd gotten the nickname Cobra, but no one had asked why he'd done it. Namely, it had been because the piss-ant had decided to rape the one girl in the orphanage and he didn't even get put on trial for it. After Sorano killed herself, Erik decided to take it into his own hands. Everyone knew he did it, but there hadn't been any evidence that it was him, so he got off scot free. The guy in question had been too terrified, and too brain damaged after the poison had sat in his system for so long, to point the finger.

After the interrogation from her brother, Erik had then needed to deal with figuring out just how a relationship with Lucy would work in the first place. He didn't know whether he was supposed to hold doors open for her, like he'd been taught and because she was blind, or anything else.

Luckily, the blonde had a habit of smacking him in the back of the head when he was doing something wrong - namely, babying her as though she wasn't capable of doing things on her own - and then giving him a sweet smile and a tender kiss after he apologized.

The fact that people said he was pussy-whipped didn't even faze Erik. Really, when he'd found out that Lucy had been in a few relationships with guys that had only been after her as a bet, or some other fucked up reason, Erik had grown even more determined to show her that he wasn't a thing like them. Then again, Lucy already seemed to know that. And, as he'd found out, she didn't just smack _him_ in the head. Gajeel and Bickslow both got the same treatment from her, so really, he was taking that shit as a good sign since she did it to them a whole lot more than to him.

And still after several months, as the spring semester came to a close and everyone was deciding what they would be doing over the summer break, Erik and Lucy were going strong. He actually found himself missing having a class with her, but he got over it.

And, when Lucy had mentioned that she and Gajeel usually went home for the summer, and asked Erik if he was interested in joining - even though he'd yet to meet her parents - the maroon-haired teen found himself seriously considering it.

And then he'd talked to his fucking grandmother. Apparently, she wanted him to come home for the summer. It wasn't that her health was deteriorating, but she'd apparently figured out the internet and wanted to grill his ass on the blonde girl that was suddenly popping up in the pictures he posted on Facebook. Or, mainly that he was being tagged in so many of them with her. The line of questions she'd put his ass through over the phone had only been the tip of the iceberg, he just knew it.

He already knew that he was going to blow her off, though. It wouldn't be too difficult to just take a couple classes online over the summer, and say that he was too busy. She was more than supportive of his continued persistence in his studies, and he usually did take summer classes anyway so he could be done with school that much faster. Granted, his grandmother had suggested he become a surgeon or some other medical doctor, because she'd said that there weren't enough smart doctors in the world and at least he had a halfway decent head on his shoulders, but it just hadn't interested Erik.

Science had always been where his interests laid, and it was why he was going to get his doctorate in chemistry. And now, Lucy was tied with it. She might even be pulling slightly ahead of science where his interests were concerned, he wasn't sure.

And so, as he walked into an art gallery that Saturday evening after finals week was done, Erik was instantly searching for his beautiful blonde girlfriend. It wasn't too hard to spot her standing off to one side, talking with Gajeel who was wearing his leather biker's jacket and Bickslow who was appropriately dressed for an art show in dark grey dress pants and a lighter grey silk shirt.

Her hair was pulled into a low, elegant bun. A simple black dress cinched her already tiny waist and draped over her hips to her knees, and black leather flats were covering what he'd come to realize were adorable feet. He already knew that Lucy didn't wear heels, since it made her a little more unstable, but it was the sight of her not wearing her sunglasses for a change - something he'd learned Lucy only did when they were alone - that had Erik pausing in the entrance.

 _'Damn... I'm a lucky bastard...'_

Two sets of crimson eyes locked onto him, and Erik forced his feet to move and his lungs to pull in more oxygen while Bickslow and Gajeel turned their attention back to Lucy.

By the time he'd reached the radiant blonde, he was feeling a little more like himself, but once his hand slipped into hers and she turned to smile up at him, he found the room growing hotter by the second.

"Hey, handsome," Lucy sighed happily as the familiar calluses slid over her palm.

"Hey yourself, love," Erik whispered, leaning in to lightly kiss her cheek. He glanced to Gajeel and Bickslow. "Fucknugget. Bix."

"Go fuck yerself, Breaking Bad," Gajeel smirked.

"Hey, Erik," Bickslow chuckled.

Lucy gently squeezed Erik's hand and he turned to look at her gentle smile. "Ready to show me some art?" he whispered.

"Definitely," she giggled. The two couples slowly walked through the gallery, pausing at some of the pictures. "I wish I could see these," Lucy sighed. "They sound beautiful when people tell me about them…"

"Yours are the only ones I care about, y'know," Erik whispered as they continued on. Really, he'd only made an appearance because Lucy's work was being showcased. He was sure it was the same reason that Gajeel and Bickslow were there as well.

"W-Well, you'll know them when you see them," she said with a blush.

They rounded a corner and Erik froze when he saw a series of portraits hanging along one wall. The coloring was what let him know that Lucy was the artist for the majority of them, but in the very center there was one that just took his fucking breath away.

A portrait of himself.

"L-Lucy?"

"You see it?" she grinned hopefully.

A breathless laugh escaped him as they moved closer to the portrait in question. He was suddenly stunned into silence by just how lifelike the painting was, with the only real difference being the colour palette ranging from reds and greens to deep brown and black. He already knew that Lucy didn't normally paint that way, simply because she'd told him that she had a hard time differentiating between red and brown when she tried switching between them. His eye was the only thing that was truly the right color, with the bright amethyst orb holding such intensity that he could nearly feel it piercing his soul.

Most of her artwork had a black foreground image with a brightly colored background, but this… She'd made him the focus of the painting, and instead had used a black background and bordered the canvas with a green mist. He didn't look angry in the slightest in the portrait, and was instead smiling the way he knew he did when Lucy was around.

"H-How did you…"

Lucy moved a little closer, tucking herself into his side and resting her head on his shoulder. "I wanted everyone else to see what they usually miss," she whispered fondly. Since they had started dating, Lucy had finally found someone that she had really connected with. Erik was smart, funny, and just enough of a dick to keep up with Gajeel. He didn't baby her like most people did when they found out she was blind, and the two had quite a few laughs when he seemingly forgot all about it and tried to show her something.

No one had ever done that before. Her family and friends were all too aware of her limitations, but Erik made her really feel like a normal girl for once in her life.

His gaze strayed to the border and when Erik leaned a little closer, he shook his head as realization hit. "You used oxidized copper," he whispered in wonder. "This is… How _you_ see me?"

"I think so," Lucy winced. "I hope it looks the way you feel… But…"

Forgetting just where they were, and mostly not giving a shit anyway, Erik turned with the blonde in his arms and brought his lips to hers. She squeaked in alarm, and he couldn't help but let out a quiet laugh as he lightly nipped at her lips. "It's perfect, love," he sighed. "Absolutely fucking perfect."

With a flushed face, both from arousal and embarrassment, Lucy smiled sweetly at her boyfriend while placing a gentle hand on his cheek. Her thumb lightly brushed over his scar, the lashes of his closed-over eyelid grazing the tip. "You're perfect, Erik," she whispered, stifling a moan as Erik swooped down and kissed her more intensely.

"Holy shit, baby girl. That's some fine fuckin' art!"

Erik blinked in surprise as Lucy went rigid, then broke away from the kiss to whirl around and face the owner of the deep rumbling voice off to his left. Really, the man had gained everyone's attention with his statement, but the shrill screech from the blonde in his arms, and how she ripped herself away from him to throw herself into another man's enormously muscular arms, had Erik very nearly shitting his pants.

"Papa! You came!"

 _'That's... Fuck, that's her old man?!'_ Erik thought.

"Yer fuckin' right I came," he laughed as the sweet blonde girl barreled into him. His arms wound around her and his nose nestled in her hair while deep crimson eyes narrowed on the tanned teenager that had previously been manhandling her. "But, am I gonna need to beat some ass? Looks a little scrawny."

"Meta, be nice."

Erik's jaw clamped shut while looking from the man that was, in essence an older version of Gajeel - piercings, wild raven hair, and all - over to a blonde woman just off to his side. If he'd had any doubts that Lucy would be just as beautiful when she got older, they were dashed as he took in the sight of what he belatedly realized was his girlfriend's mother. The only difference between them, aside from age, was that her mother's eyes were a deep honey brown. What he could only assume would have been Lucy's same eyes if she hadn't been born blind.

"I'll be nice when he stops lickin' my baby girl's fuckin' tonsils, Layla," Metallicana growled.

"Papa," Lucy laughed. "Erik's allowed to lick my tonsils, not that he was doing that. He's my boyfriend."

Erik gulped when her stepfather's eyes burned more brilliantly.

"Since when-"

"Meta," Layla laughed. "Lucy told us about Erik months ago."

"Then the hit I sent out didn't fuckin' take…"

"Nah, old man," Gajeel chuckled. "He's a snaky little fuck." He pulled away from Bickslow's side to press a tender kiss to Layla's cheek. "Hey, Mama. Still lookin' like a cougar."

"Gajeel," Bickslow cackled. "Sometimes I wonder how gay you really are."

"Gay enough to lay yer ass out-"

"Oh-kay!" Erik said, clearing his throat and stepping forward. "I hear enough about just how fucking gay you two are for each other on a daily basis."

"You got a problem with my son bein' gay?" Metallicana sneered.

"Uh…" Erik frowned and looked down at Lucy, then over to Gajeel and Bickslow, and finally back to his girlfriend's parents. "No? I mean, aside from when I'm trying to sleep, and they're jerking each other off like… five feet away from me."

"The dorm room really isn't big enough," Bickslow chuckled. "Hey, Metallicana. Miss Layla."

Layla shook her head while she was pulled into her stepson's boyfriend's arms. "Two years, Bickslow. I think you can just call me Layla."

"Or Mom," Lucy teased, finally pulling herself away from her stepdad to hug her mom. "Hey, Mama. So… This is Erik."

"And his portrait," Layla giggled. Just as her daughter was pulling away, she leaned down and loudly whispered, "And just so you know, he's a sexy one."

"Oh my god," Gajeel groaned. "Don't start this shit…"

Erik cleared his throat again, tentatively thrusting his hand forward to Metallicana. Once it was caught in a bruising grip, with Erik not showing an ounce of the pain his poor, poor fucking hand was in, he said, "Erik Vivas."

"Metallicana Redfox." His crimson eyes narrowed for a moment. "Are you trying to fuck my little girl?"

Lucy choked on her spit. Layla scowled and pinched her husband's side. Gajeel and Bickslow snorted in amusement.

Erik, for his part, didn't do a whole lot of thinking, and instead let whatever came to mind fly out of his mouth. "Well, it'd be a little inappropriate to bend her over a sculpture and start banging her in front of you, but…"

He refused to admit that he whimpered when Metallicana's grip on his hand tightened.

"No, I'm not trying to fuck her," Erik finished. "Unless peeling her skin off and using it as a pocket pussy is considered fucking her."

There was a pregnant silence with everyone watching as Metallicana's grip on Erik's hand tightened even further, the bones audibly shifting. They stared into each other's eyes, the larger man's crimson battling with his single indigo, then they all let out a collective breath when Metallicana started cracking up, pulling the deeply tanned teen into a half hug.

"You ain't half bad, kid!"

Lucy blushed when she felt her mother's gaze on her, giving a helpless smile in response. Once she knew Erik was facing her and her mother, she said, "Mama, I'd like you to meet Erik."

Erik suddenly realized that, while it seemed like a halfway decent idea to make a sick joke to Lucy's stepfather - especially considering the guy had approved of it - it wasn't necessarily the impression he wanted to make on her mother. Then again, he wasn't really all that accustomed to caring what other people thought of him. "Miss-"

He froze as the older woman stepped forward with a gentle smile on her face, one that was strikingly similar to the ones Lucy gave him sometimes.

Her hands lifted to his cheeks, with one thumb brushing over his scar as she looked into his slightly widened eye. "Please, dear," Layla whispered, "Just call me Layla."

"Uh… Alright."

She let out a quiet laugh as Lucy began talking with their family, then looped her arm with Erik's and led him a little bit away from the group, closer to the portrait her daughter had painted of him. While looking at the piece, she sighed. "So, this is how she sees you?"

"From what she says, yeah."

"What's that border made out of?" Layla frowned. "Lucy doesn't use anything but paint, normally."

Erik chuckled then. "Oxidized copper. That's what color her eyes are."

Layla blinked while turning to look at him, her eyes narrowed slightly in confusion. "Oxidized copper?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "I took her down to the lab last semester and showed her how to mix vinegar, ammonia, and salt to speed up the oxidation process of copper that naturally happens with water and air. She turned three dollars worth of pennies green before we decided to stop."

Layla laughed again and tilted her head at the spark that appeared in Erik's eye while he spoke, both about science and about her daughter. "Why did you decide to date my daughter, Erik?"

He bit his lip and looked right into her honey-colored eyes. "You want the truth?"

"Of course."

"I still don't know," he chuckled. "One minute, I was working with her on a project, trying to figure out how she can paint and not be able to see… And the next… My hands were covered in paint and I was kissing her. Then I was taking her to get ice cream, and here we are..."

Layla blinked in surprise, looking back over to her sightless daughter as she was tucked under Metallicana's arm. "This isn't some game to you, is it?"

"No," he frowned. "Why-"

"Because, if it is, I don't want you to come around her ever again. You can leave right now, and no one will fault you. But, if I find out that this is just-"

"Look," Erik sighed. "Lucy's told me about the guys that she's dated, and I can promise you, I'm nothing like them."

"And how would I know that?" Layla frowned.

"You wouldn't. But, I'd say you should put some trust in your daughter and her overprotective brother, and his damn boyfriend… Both of which teased the hell out of me when they found out I've never dated anyone before her."

"And why is that?" Layla asked with narrowed eyes. "Too good to date?"

"No. I was too busy leaving everyone in my class in the fucking dust," Erik grinned. "I was the top of my class in Caelum University, Layla. And my Granny wanted me to make it so I could do anything I wanted. That meant getting top grades. I didn't bother with making friends, or anything else, because I was - and still am - focused on my education."

"Then why would you date my daughter?" Layla asked. "Being in a relationship takes time, and one with Lucy will take more time because of her-"

"No fucking offense," Erik scowled, keeping his voice low so he didn't draw any attention to their conversation. "But you can go choke on a bag of dicks if you think there's something wrong with Lucy."

"She's blind, Erik," Layla sighed.

"Yeah, I know. Big fucking deal. She gets as much of my time as she wants, _because_ she's my girlfriend. I made sure I had time to spend with her by cutting down to only four classes a semester, but that's not because she's blind. Hell, I forget she is more often than not because she doesn't act like she can't see a damn thing."

Layla blinked in surprise while staring at the tanned teenager before her. "You… what?"

"I said I forget she's blind," he huffed. "I can't tell you how many times I've asked her to proofread something for me only to get smacked in the head. But she smiles anyway, and I still don't know why…"

"You…" She turned to look at her family again, watching as Lucy sighed while Metallicana led her through the milling people to look at her other artwork. "You forget?"

"That's what I said."

"And you don't treat her differently?"

"No. Why should I?" he replied. "She doesn't treat me any differently for only having one eye and no depth perception. Or for being an asshole."

"No," Layla laughed softly. "I guess she wouldn't."

"And besides," he shrugged, looking back toward the portrait Lucy had painted of him. "She sees me like no one else does."

"And how is that?"

"Like this," he whispered, gesturing to the painting. "Everyone else… They don't give a shit about who I am, but Lucy understands me. And I'd like to think I understand her, too."

"Do you love her?" Layla whispered, watching as a tender smile ticked up the corners of his lips, baring the faintest hint of dimples in his cheeks. Really, the portrait they were in front of was very obviously Erik, but by the look on his face right then, she just couldn't imagine him smiling the way Lucy had painted. And still, Layla knew that her daughter had a way of seeing parts of people that no one else did.

"I haven't told her that yet," he chuckled. "Think you can keep my secret?"

A tender smile graced the older blonde's face and she turned to press a soft kiss to the scar on his cheek. "I think you'll be just fine for my little girl," she whispered. "And I didn't even have to threaten you."

As they turned to make their way back to the larger group, Erik laughed and shook his head. "Knowing Lucy, you're the one I should really be afraid of. So, I'm counting my blessings right now."

"A wise choice, Erik."

Once Lucy was back on Erik's arm, and after they had decided to leave the art showing to get dinner with her family a short while later, Erik found the conversation to flow much easier with her parents. Things were simple, funny as hell at times, and then he just had to ruin it all.

"So, Erik," Metallicana said after taking a sip of his wine. "What are you doing over the summer? The kids said they invited you to come down with them and stay with us?"

"Well, my Granny called and asked if I'd head back to Caelum for a visit," he said.

"Oh my god, that's adorable," Layla sighed. "You really love your grandmother, huh?"

Metallicana and Gajeel both dropped their heads into their hands, groaning at the suddenly heart-melting expression the blonde was giving Erik. Lucy and Bickslow quietly laughed.

Erik, for his part, was ready to crawl under a rock and die. Or to have a roadrunner drop a fucking anvil on him from a fifty story cliff. He really wasn't picky.

He'd never meant to mention that shit to anyone but Lucy, or the fact that he was planning on telling his grandmother to fuck off for the summer with a promise that he'd be home for Christmas if she wanted. But, with the look he was getting from Layla, he was pretty sure she would eat his ass alive if he said anything other than yes, he was going home to see Granny Porly.

And that was when he realized that it would probably be a much better idea to visit his scowling, grouchy, broom-wielding grandmother than spend two months with Lucy's parents. Layla was fucking scary when she wanted to be. He could almost hear the cogs working overtime in her brain on how to get Lucy to bear an exorbitant amount of his children, which only sent chills down his spine.

"Uh, yeah," he coughed awkwardly. "She's the only family I've got, so… Yeah."

Lucy laced her fingers with Erik's beneath the table, giving them a reassuring squeeze. It definitely sucked that he wouldn't be spending the summer with her, because she had wanted to take him down to the beach and try her hand at building a sand castle with someone she could actually work with - since Gajeel was a bossy little bitch when it came to sand sculptures. But, really, she understood. Based on the slight tremor in his voice, her mom was scaring the shit out of him.

"Well, that's just too sweet for words," Layla giggled.

"It's really not," Metallicana muttered.

"Pretty much," Erik shrugged.

"I'm gonna miss you," Lucy whispered.

Erik bit his lip and frowned down at his empty plate and nearly empty glass of water. He didn't want to spend the summer without his girlfriend, that much he was sure of. And, even though he hadn't been expecting it, he _had_ gotten to meet her family. "Love," he said back.

"Hm?"

"Would you, maybe… wanna go visit Granny Porly with me?"

A sudden hush fell over the table, with Metallicana, Layla, Bickslow, and Gajeel all staring intently at the couple with their jaws slack.

"We'd probably have to update your passport, but… I could, uh… show you around and all that."

"I won't be able to see it," Lucy laughed softly, a slight blush on her cheeks.

"Sure, you won't get to see all the sexy dumpsters I was planning on taking you to, but… You can smell them. That's an adventure all on its own."

"Ass," she giggled, pinching his thigh.

"Layla, don't say a fucking word," Metallicana whispered, wincing as she gripped his hand and her nails dug into his flesh.

"Seriously though," Erik chuckled. "Wanna meet her? She's been asking about you."

"Since when?"

"Since you started posting pictures of me online, you fucking creeper. She's figured out the internet… It's terrifying."

Lucy nibbled her lip, feeling his thumb brushing over the back of her hand beneath the table. "Which part of Caelum?"

"Holy shit," Bickslow whispered to Gajeel.

"Shut up, Bix," Gajeel whispered back. Really, his boyfriend was just as bad as his stepmother when it came to being a fucking sap over romantic shit. Especially where Lucy was concerned.

"Southern shore. She lives in a cottage about three miles from the beach."

After a single breath, Lucy gave him a brilliant smile. "I'd like that, Erik."

He grinned right back, then gave her a quick kiss and turned back to look at the rest of her family, only to snap his jaw shut. "... What?"

"Over the river and through the woods," Gajeel smirked.

"Railroad dick, I'm gonna beat your ass," Erik hissed.

"Oh my god!" Layla finally screeched. "You two are going to have the cutest little babies!" She wilted out of her chair and to the ground once the words had passed her lips.

"Goddamnit," Metallicana muttered. "Baby girl, I blame you for this."

Lucy shrugged helplessly while the guys all laughed. Really, there was only so much she could do, but she was sure that there was nothing that would have stopped her mother from descending into madness. The woman had been waiting a very long time for her daughter to be in a real relationship, after all.

Erik shook his head and chuckled as Metallicana poured the pitcher of ice water from the table on the unconscious woman. Slowly, once he was sure no one else was paying attention to them, he leaned over to whisper in Lucy's ear. "Why do I get the feeling that'll be us in a few years?"

"Huh?" Lucy frowned, turning toward the sound of his humor-filled voice. "Are you planning on pouring water on me?" It was an almost daily occurrence that her dad would pour water on her mother during a meal. Lucy still didn't understand why she never got mad about it, but it was adorable listening to the two pretend to argue afterwards.

"Only if you start screaming about babies when our daughter is dating a sexy motherfucker."

"Wh-What… You… D-Daughter?" Lucy sputtered.

Erik shrugged and gave the blushing blonde a light peck on the lips. "Not for a long ass time, love," he chuckled.

"Y-You… Huh?"

"Cosplayer, I think he's saying he wants you to have his babies," Bickslow chuckled.

"A whole litter of fuckin' Cobra-Bunnies… Please, don't do that to the world," Gajeel groaned.

"B-Babies?" Lucy whimpered.

"One day," Erik chuckled against her lips. When he saw the unnatural shade of red Lucy's face had become, he grinned and whispered, "I love you, Lucy."

Her eyes widened just as Layla sat back down, blotting at the moisture on her blouse. "I-I love you too, Erik," Lucy giggled breathlessly.

The group at the table laughed as Lucy's mother collapsed to the ground again, with Metallicana dropping his head to the table and whining loudly about the unfairness of being married to a fucking lunatic. The other diners in the restaurant turned to look at them for all of five seconds before two intense glares from Gajeel and Erik had them returning to their own meals.

"When do we leave for Caelum?" Lucy asked after several minutes, her sides burning from her laughter.

"Next week sound good?"

She sighed happily and laid her head on his shoulder, smiling more widely as Erik kissed her hair. "It sounds perfect."

 _ **.The End.**_

* * *

 **And there's Day 4! So, the prompt for this came from tumblr, as I stated in the beginning, and it just took off and morphed as I was typing. Here was the original prompt.**

 _Imagine Person A is a synesthete and Person B is blind. Person A uses their synesthesia to explain to Person B what colours are._

 **As you can see, I didn't entirely stick to that. But, who cares?!**

 **For anyone that doesn't know what a switch is, or why Erik would have been forced to go get one himself, it's essentially a flexible branch cut from a tree to be used for corporal punishment. Some people have children go to cut their own switches as part of the punishment (where they have to strip all the twigs, etc. off) and then spank them with it. I don't know if that's a custom anywhere else, but down in Florida, it was very common when I was a kid.**

 **Oh, and I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to painting (much like Cobra), so I did the best I could. I hope there weren't too many inconsistencies or just downright false bits of information.**

 **As far as the science... Yeah, that's all google. Seriously, go watch the youtube videos of potassium exploding in water. It's awesome.**

 **Also, there will be a continuation one-shot at some point of Erik and (blind)Lucy going to Caelum to visit Granny Porly. I don't know when that'll happen, but I just had so much fun writing these two that I know writing Porlyusica will be a damn treat.**

 **Regardless, I'll see you all tomorrow for…**

 _ **Day 5: Answers**_

 **So, Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika**


	6. Pop Quiz

**A/N: Welcome to Day 5, everyone! So, I went through three or four different ideas for this day, and finally just decided, thanks to my lovely Triplet,** _ **LittlePrincessNana**_ **, to go with this one. The others are waiting in the wings for when I feel like delving into them, just as oneshots, but until then… Let's get this started!**

 **Also, this is a College AU, like yesterday, but it's not the same 'blind!Lucy' universe. Just wanted to clarify that now.**

 **So, without further ado, I give you…**

 **Day 5: Answers**

* * *

 _ **Pop Quiz**_

* * *

Students filed out of the classroom, several sending curious glances toward the scowling professor in a lab coat that was leaning against the wall opposite the door. Being in the English building, there was really no reason for that professor in particular, who several recognized by the maroon hair and wicked scar that bisected his right eye, to be there.

Doctor Cobra was what the student body as a whole in Fiore University called the man. He was a legend, even to the students that had wisely steered clear of anything relating to chemistry while taking their required science credits during their first two years. He was notorious for bringing students to tears, for grading so harshly that there was only one or two students every other year that managed anything higher than a C. His tests were always essays, and he expected nothing less than perfection. The sheer amount of red pens he went through in grading was terrifying.

And, although there wasn't a whole lot anyone was willing to do to question the man, none of them envied the students that had apparently straggled long enough in the classroom when he brushed past them and stormed inside.

Many were tempted to run back in and save their Creative Writing professor, Doctor Vivas - who insisted that her students just call her Lucy - the beautiful blonde that really was too damn nice more often than not.

"Vivas, I've got a bone to pick with you!"

"Go to the Archaeology guys. They're into science too, right? Same thing?"

A nearly violent ripple of silence fell over the few students still standing in the class, openly gawking at the two professors. The blonde, simply smirking while sorting through her bag, and her counterpart's single eye flared brilliantly enough to have everyone else too afraid to move a muscle.

"That _shit_ ," Cobra hissed, "Is not science."

"Huh, that's odd. Don't they offer labs for that-"

"It's history!" he bellowed.

"With lab reports and analyses," she nodded. "Curiouser and curiouser."

"Don't start that Alice bullshit with me!" He pointed an accusing finger at the blonde and stalked forward. "I want some goddamn answers!"

She paused and raised a brow at him, then looked past his wildly burning eye to the students that were still in the class. With a gentle, unperturbed smile, she said, "Rufus, did you have a question for me?"

"U-Um… I can just… meet with you during office hours, if-"

"No, it's alright. You were here first."

The blond student winced when Cobra's glare was turned on him, but he still took a step forward, his stapled manuscript clenched tightly in his hands. "I did the revisions you suggested, and switched perspectives in a few areas. I was just wondering if I would be able to submit it for the next workshop."

Lucy smiled and held out her hand, quietly thanking him for the pages. After a quick scan through the problem areas she'd noticed before, a bright smile spread across her cheeks. "I can already tell you this is much better," she laughed. "We can't do the same story for another workshop, since there's not that much time in the semester for repeats. I really wish we could, but I can look it over if you'd like."

"Really?" Rufus asked. "You wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all," Lucy grinned. "I love reading what you guys write! Do you want some tips for getting this published, too?"

"That'd be great," he laughed.

"Then I'll get something typed up as a handout for next week," Lucy grinned. "And I'll put a couple notes on here for you, too

"You're sure though," Rufus insisted. "I-"

"She said yes, Lore!" Cobra snarled. "Fuck, will you get the hell out of here before I rip that stupid fucking hat off of your head and make _you_ into Yankee goddamn Doodle?!"

"The feather goes _in_ his cap," Lucy frowned at Cobra. "Are you an idiot?"

A sharklike grin curved Cobra's lips as he turned back to the busty blonde. "Not the way I sing it," he chuckled darkly. "Feather up the ass."

"I-I'll um… Bye!" Rufus and the few students that hadn't been able to bring themselves to move until then, rushed out of the room.

Lucy sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall. Nine thirty-five at night. She loved her lecture classes, but the late ones - which usually had some of the most interesting students - just took her will to live right out of her by the end of the class. Sure, she kept herself all smiles while her students were around, but she was just mentally drained.

And, of course, now she had to deal with Cobra.

"Now," Lucy sighed. "What did you need?"

His eye narrowed while looking over the empty room, then he locked the door. With a frown he muttered, "You people don't have windows on the doors?"

"Nope," Lucy shrugged. "What did you need?"

He turned slowly, listening to the dimming sounds of the creative writing students as they made their way down the hall. With how late it was, he was sure none of them would linger. As soon as he couldn't hear anyone but the blonde as she continued packing up her bag, Cobra made his way over to her and gently lifted his hands to sweep her golden hair off to one shoulder.

Lucy rolled her eyes and giggled when she felt his lips brushing over her neck. His fingers trailed down the length of her arms as he moved in behind her, letting her feel the warmth radiating from his body. "Can I help you?"

"I sure hope so, _Doctor_ Vivas."

"Need a prescription for some Syntax?" she laughed. Their fingers laced together and his arms wound around her waist. Slightly sharpened teeth scraped over her flesh leading up to her ear.

"No, I need you bent over this table," Cobra groaned softly. He could feel the aroused shudder running through the blonde, and wished more than anything that she was already naked and tightening around him.

"Erik," she whispered, her chest tightening on a gasp as his fingers skittered over her hip to the small of her back. The zipper of her pencil skirt was lowered, and although she would have been able to breathe just a little easier as it was pushed down her shivering legs, the havoc being wrought on her senses was making her lightheaded. His lips and tongue and teeth were always able to weaken her knees, his warm breath sending her mind spinning.

"Step."

Her heel stuttered over the floor while the grey fabric pooled at her feet, and she took a shaky step to the side. "Wait a second," she gasped as his hands smoothed over her bared flesh. "Not here. You know we could-"

"No one will find out," Cobra chuckled. "As long as you're relatively quiet."

She moaned as he turned her head, his lips seeking hers over her shoulder. While he worked to remove her blouse, Lucy brought her shaking hands to her panties and quickly shoved them down her quivering thighs. At least she'd tried to stop him. Sort of.

He broke away from the kiss on a groan, nearly ripping the light blue blouse as he pushed the last button through its hole to bare her breasts covered in a pale pink bra. The cups of her bra were pulled down and his fingers instantly sought the hardening peaks of her nipples. He already knew before he did it that she was going to bitch at him later for it, but he really didn't care about whether her fucking bra had a weird shape later on. He'd just buy her a new one if it was a big deal.

"E-Erik," Lucy whimpered.

"Mm, Cobra tonight," he growled, nipping harshly at her lips. "Now, up on the damn table and spread 'em."

A seductive smile lifted her lips as she scrambled onto the table next to the podium. While getting herself into position, Lucy could hear the quick shifting of fabric behind her, the knock of his belt buckle while it carried his pants to the floor.

"Lower."

Biting her lip and leaning forward so her hands were stabilizing her body, Lucy spread her legs until her sex was nearly touching the table beneath her.

"Fuck," he hissed.

"You'd better have a condom with you this time," Lucy rasped.

"And if I don't?" he grinned, rolling the rubber down his mostly hardened member. His free hand clutched at her ass while he gazed longingly at her core. "Goddamnit, that's fucking beautiful."

"Wh-Wha - _Mmm_ …" She loved and hated the way he moved in behind her and teased her with the tip of his cock. How he would just barely dip into her sex before pulling back and rubbing himself over her entrance. Thankfully, she also had rather intimate knowledge of the difference between that thin sheaf of rubber stretched over him as opposed to when he was going _au naturale_ , so he'd at least come prepared.

Erik took a shaky breath as Lucy's hips started rolling back to try and force him into her, placing a staying hand on her lower back. His thumb brushed lovingly over the spread hood of the king cobra tattoo she'd gotten while they were still students in this same college. Just before she could turn to give him the tender smile that he just knew would come from her over such a gentle act, he bit his lip and drove himself into her.

"Cobra!" Lucy gasped. His arms wound around her, fingers instantly seeking her breasts as he started to move. "Fuck!"

"God, that's what I wanna hear," he growled. His teeth ground together as his hips stilled and the blonde took the lead, quickly grinding back against him. "Fuck, Alice. You're gonna make me forget why I came down here."

"O-Oh?"

He grinned and roughly pinched her nipples, pulling her upright as he continued to move within her. He should have known she was going to reach back and pull him into a toe-curling kiss, but damnit she was always able to surprise him like this.

"Wh-What did you need, Cobra?"

"Spell check," he groaned against her lips.

"Wha - Oh, god! Right there!"

With one hand still relentlessly teasing her breast, the other slid down to seek out her sensitive bundle. A wicked grin split his lips as he panted in her ear, "Spell check, Alice. Onomatopoeia."

"A-Are you… fucking kidding me?!" She whimpered as his hand lifted from her sex and his finger was pushed between her lips. She could just barely taste the remnants of her arousal and the lubricant on the condom while her tongue curled around his finger, but Lucy was beyond caring right then.

"I wanna know," he growled.

Lucy cried out as his hand shot back down to her core, the wetted finger circling her clit faster with each rough plunge. "C-Cobra! I…"

"Don't tell me no," he rasped.

Licking her lips, Lucy's head tipped back to his shoulder, her hips rolling to keep up with his relentless pace. " _O_ ," she moaned. " _N_ … O-Oh god…"

Cobra grinned and planted himself deeply with the blonde. He pulled one of her shaking legs down to the floor, then gently guided her to lie flat on the table.

" _O-n-o-m_ ," she panted heavily, a long shuddering groan escaping her as he pulled back and started moving more frantically. "F-Fuck I hate this word!"

"Better finish before I do," Cobra groaned. His eye flashed excitedly as he looked down at her contorted body, how she was so desperately grasping at the edge of the table. "Fuck, you're so sexy like this!"

" _A-A_. _T_ … Ngh…. _O-O_ …" She cried out when his hand came crashing down on her ass. "Oh my god!"

"Someone's gonna hear, you keep screaming like that," Cobra moaned. He was taunting her, sure, but Lucy knew just how much he loved hearing her during sex. How her voice would crack with each sharp snap of his hips. The throaty moans as his hand came down on her flesh in a hard smack.

" _P_ … Shit… _a-t-o-p_ … Nghh… _O_ …"

He grinned as her voice shook, her sex fluttering around his already aching shaft. It had been a long, annoying day, and this was exactly what he'd needed. From the tension in her shoulders when he'd walked into the room, while her students were still there, Lucy needed it just as badly.

" _E_ … Oh, Cobra!"

"That's it," he hissed. His fingers dug into her hips as the table shifted, the metal legs groaning every time she was pushed forward. The sight of her reaching down to pull her lifted leg higher, gifting him with the perfect view of where he was spearing into her, nearly threw him over the edge right then.

" _I_ … Fuck I'm s-so… Oh god…" Lucy arched her back, her body tightening and locking in place while she panted against the tabletop.

Cobra's eye widened slightly when he saw the look on her face. Pure desire curled her upper lip. Her eyes, barely able to stay open and so clouded with lust, it left him breathless. "C'mon, Alice," he rasped desperately. "Spell it all… Fucking do it…"

"Oh… Fuck… Fuck! _A_!" Lucy's voice cracked on the final letter as the tension in her finally mounted and broke. She wasn't sure if it was a cry of pleasure or a sob of relieved success as she soared higher and higher, but the feeling of Cobra going deathly still after slamming into her one last time, and the quiet growl of completion he let out, had the blonde grinning like a madman.

Hips planted firmly against her reddened ass, Cobra hummed as the last shots of his release poured into the condom. "Gimme an example," he whispered tenderly.

She let out a breathless laugh as he withdrew, her leg finally sliding down from the table. "Like Wolverine, you'll hear my knuckles go 'Snikt'."

Cobra chuckled while tying the rubber and grabbing a tissue from her purse. "Did you just fucking MC Chris on me?"

With a slow, sated breath, Lucy stood and leaned against the table, watching as he took the balled up tissue and shoved it into the pocket of his lab coat. One that she realized he hadn't taken off. "You love that song," she crooned.

"And the fact that you know all the words makes me wanna impregnate you and create an army of beautiful fucking genius babies."

"They'll be insane monsters," she giggled while fixing her bra. A small pout turned down her lips. "You owe me a new bra."

"I know." Cobra grinned while pulling his pants and boxers back up. Once his own clothing was situated, he knelt down in front of the blonde and slipped her panties back onto her ankles, humming in contentment as he slid them up her legs. Her light laugh as he pressed a kiss to her clothed sex had him grinning up at the beautiful blonde. "You need another tattoo, Alice."

She bit her lip as he started helping her get the devilish pencil skirt back on. "So do you, then. I didn't even get to see yours this time."

Cobra rolled his eye as she started tucking her blouse into her skirt and zipping it up, then quickly undid his belt again and pulled his pants down just enough for her to see the Cheshire grin and glowing yellow-eyed tattoo he'd gotten just above his pubic hair. "Happy?"

Her smile turned devious and her slender fingers slithered over his deliciously tanned skin to tease the short, maroon hairs. "Extremely."

"Happy enough to come home now?" His last lecture had ended at five, but he always stayed on campus when Lucy had a later lecture so they could drive home together. Just like she did when he had the late class on occasion. Still, spending the past several hours simply grading tests had made him desperate for the blonde to take his mind off of the declining intelligence of the latest generation. Also, his spare red pens were at home, and the one in his bag had finally run out.

Lucy rolled her eyes and made her way back to her bag. After checking to make sure she had everything, she nodded to Cobra, then grinned when he grabbed her bag and threw his arm over shoulders. "I've been ready for hours," she whispered while grabbing her purse. "So, what was the bone you needed to pick with me?"

Cobra smirked and looked across the empty classroom, making sure they hadn't forgotten anything. He paused when he saw something in the far corner. "Who sits in the back corner with the shoddy light?"

Lucy followed his line of sight, a humorous smile pulling at her lips. "The _Dark_ Corner?" she laughed. She loved the students in her Dark Corner. There was one every few classes, where the ones that were drawn to that particular part of the class had some of the most disturbing stories she'd ever read. She loved it. "Rogue and Rufus, why?"

"There's a phone on the floor."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, then went to go and pick it up. It looked like she would be keeping it in her office and sending an email out to her students to see who had left their phone. Then again, if she opened it, she might be able to figure out whose it was.

"Ooh," Cobra crooned as Lucy turned on the screen and tucked herself into his side. "Someone's creepin'."

"Oh shut up," she giggled. When she looked down at the lock screen, Lucy rolled her eyes and shook her head. A picture of Rufus and Rogue cuddled up on a couch, with the blond's lips pressed to his raven-haired boyfriend's cheek. That narrowed it down to one of the two of her - not that she would ever tell anyone - favorite students.

With a shake of her head, Lucy smiled up at the maroon-haired doctor and pecked his cheek. "The bone to pick?"

"Oh," Cobra chuckled. He reached out and unlocked the door, then looked down at her. "I was thinking about it, and I couldn't remember how to spell onomatopoeia. That shit's been bothering me since my second lecture."

"Since ten this morning?" Lucy giggled. When he nodded she couldn't help but groan in playful annoyance. "You're insane, love. You could've just looked it up."

"I really couldn't have."

"You came halfway across campus almost twelve hours _after_ it got stuck in your head," she laughed. "Just to come to my class and ask me to spell it for you…"

"Yes."

"Google is your friend," Lucy laughed.

He shrugged then and nipped at her lips while pulling the door open and ushering her out of the class. "Can't stick my dick in Google. I tried…"

"Blue screen?"

"And blue balls," he smirked. "The computer was ashamed. I was ashamed…"

"That must have been a dark time in your life," Lucy laughed.

"It was last week," he deadpanned.

"Jesus fucking shitballs," she cackled. "Why the hell did I marry you?"

Cobra paused at the sight of two of Lucy's students standing just where he had been before her class had ended. "... Yes?"

"U-Um," Rogue muttered. "Rufus forgot his phone."

Lucy's cheeks colored while she pulled the cell from her purse, easily finding it within the confines of what she knew was the reincarnation of Mary Poppins' carpet-bag, considering Rufus' phone wasn't bedazzled (courtesy of one crass, tanned, sex-on-a-stick chemistry professor) like hers was. "Here you go, Rufus. I was gonna email you two and let you know that the Dark Corner was trying to consume your identity and go all Terminator on you."

"That…" Rufus smirked and took the phone. "You have no idea what you've just done."

"Given you an idea for a story, you little creep," she laughed.

"You really have," Rogue sighed.

"Well, this has been fun," Cobra said. "But I'm fucking exhausted, and if I have to look at anyone that's not Alice here, I'm gonna poison someone."

"Aw, be nice, Coby," she frowned.

"Coby?" Rufus whispered to Rogue.

"'Antidisestablishmentarianism' is next if you keep it up," he chuckled. "Now, c'mon. You're in heels, and I promised you a fucking foot rub."

Lucy smiled serenely and grinned at her gaping students. "I'll see you next week, guys."

They nodded, watching as the woman that they both absolutely loved having as a professor - if not for her ability to give amazing feedback on their work and to push them in ways they'd never considered, then for her kind and gentle nature - snuggled up with the university's most notoriously evil bastard.

"He, uh…" Rufus quietly cleared his throat. "You heard that too, right?"

"Nerd girl, I don't deserve you," Cobra sang with a smirk on his face. "I don't get the references you refer to."

"That she spelled onomatopoeia while he was fucking her?" Rogue whispered back, blinking slowly as Cobra pulled Lucy's purse from her and slung it over his shoulder.

"Y-Yeah…"

Lucy grinned up at Cobra, pressing a tender kiss to his cheek. "I got cockroach clusters I got them chocolate frogs," Lucy sang in return, changing the song and swaying her hips while they walked. "I got every flavor made by that babe Bertie Botts. I got what you want, I got what you need. I got those wizzy beats so fizzy you say wizard please."

"I fucking love you, Alice."

"I love you too, Coby-butt."

"Oh. My. God," Rufus snickered. "They are so freakin' adorable!"

" _You're_ a fucking nerd!" Cobra shouted.

"You want me to have your nerdy babies!" Lucy shouted back. "Accept your nerdliness!"

"That's it! Scrabble war tonight!"

"Make it Risk, and you've got a deal… Unless you're too chicken."

"You're so fucking on!"

Rufus sighed wistfully as he and Rogue walked down the hall behind the two professors. Why no one had realized that Lucy's last name was the same as Cobra's, he could only attribute to the fact that even administrators called him 'Dr. Cobra'. But, looking at the two, he was finally seeing just how ridiculous it was.

Everyone wondered who would be crazy enough to have put the wedding band on the chemistry professor, and he and Rogue constantly joked about Lucy having a few screws loose. If there was anyone in the world that would be willing to handle Cobra, it was her.

"Rufus, I swear… If you start fanning yourself over him putting his jacket on Lucy, I will slap you like you're my brother."

"I… I can't help it. Slap me and call me Sting, it's so cute!"

"You'll never forget this, will you…"

Rufus' eyes glinted with determination. "Never."

 _ **.The End.**_

* * *

 **And there's the end of Day 5! Huge thanks to my Triplets for helping me sort this shit out. I have no words for the shit that just happened. But look at that, smut in less than 3k!**

 **For anyone that hasn't heard the songs mentioned toward the end of this story, they're lovely little things by MC Chris.** **  
**Here are the links on YouTube:  
\- _Geek:_ watch?v=HBqqyIZhVQI  
\- _Nrrrd Grrrl:_ watch?v=kUNxFP1WS3k  
\- _Neville:_ watch?v=vIE7SeYJSsU

 **You have no idea how long I've waited to be able to use MC Chris in a fic. Too long... Also, I'm only slightly ashamed that I know all the words to these songs.**

 **Really, I don't know why Rufus ended up being a diva at the end there. I just couldn't help it.**

 **I'll see you all tomorrow for…**

 _ **Day 6: Raspberry**_

 **So, Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika**


	7. It Could Have Been Me

**A/N: I decided to do something a little different for this prompt in 2016. I'd seen fanart for things like this (not for this pairing, sadly), but I'd never seen it written out, so… That's what I decided to do. Read on to find out what 'that' is!**

 **(For anyone who had searched for this in the past couple months only to find it had been taken down, I apologize. I'd been planning on doing a continuation for Day 8 of CoLu Week 2017, then changed my mind… and I kinda forgot that I'd taken this down from FFnet to edit it. My bad?)**

* * *

 _ **2016 - Raspberry**_

 _ **It Could Have Been Me**_

* * *

Erik Scarlet ran up the streets of the ancient Nirvit civilization, his amethyst eyes narrowed while he looked for a sign of any of the Demon Generals trying to stop him. Angel was already down, thanks to his use of _Urano Metria_ , but there was still more that needed to be done. The fact that the city was moving in the first place was definitely not a good sign. Especially since Erza, his sister and teammate, had said she was going to talk some sense into Jellal concerning Nirvana.

He knew they had a past. He'd been there and escaped the Tower of Heaven with her that day so long ago.

Erik also knew that Erza had been in the huge pillar of light that had shot up from the ground before the whole place grew fucking octopus legs and started walking around.

Natsu and Happy had flown away, and he was stuck trying to follow behind them.

Wherever the Fire Dragon Slayer went, there was bound to be trouble.

Well, with Erik's luck, or general lack thereof, wherever _he_ was at, there was trouble.

His feet came to a screeching halt as a body crashed to the ground in front of him, and his hand instantly sought out the golden keys connected to his belt. As the smoke cleared, Erik's eyes widened when he caught sight of a head of salmon-colored hair peeking out from a deep crater. And the little blue cat with wings sprawled across his back.

"Shit, Salamander," he hissed. "What the hell happened to you?"

A feminine scoff off to his right and an odd echoing hiss drew his attention, and the Celestial mage turned to find a blonde woman, with an enormous purple snake with batlike wings coiled around her, glaring down at the Fire Slayer.

' _Wow… Who the hell is she?'_

The woman rolled her eyes and climbed onto the snake's back, taking in the man's delicious caramel skin, and narrowed violet eyes. His beautifully crimson spiked hair. The scent of raspberries and almonds in the air that blew her way. "Sorry about your luck, Raspberry," she growled. "I've got bigger fish to fry."

' _Raspberry? Pretty original, I guess… I hate it, but I don't think anyone has said my hair is the color of raspberries before…'_

He nearly had a coronary when the black leather pants, that he was sure had been vacuum-sealed to her, accentuated the fine curve of her ass. Her breasts were nearly falling out of a deep crimson corset. Patent leather combat boots laced up her slender legs, stopping halfway up her calves.

What he really noticed was how her eyes were the same color as his, just a whole lot more wicked, filled with hatred and disgust. The vicious snarl pulling at her upper lip to display pointed canines he'd only ever seen on Natsu and Gajeel. Blonde hair flowing down just past her shoulders in twin braids.

It seemed that Natsu was down for the count for a little while, and although Erik was feeling pretty damn drained from his own fight with Angel - considering he'd only ever used that particular spell once before, and it hadn't ended very well for him or the training grounds behind the guild - he also knew that the blonde before him was one of the only two women in the Oracion Seis. If only he could remember her name…

Her amethyst eyes narrowed, the snake pausing to turn its bright green eyes toward him and giving him a nearly identical look.

"You took out Angel, huh?" she asked. "I've gotta say, I'm surprised."

"That's what someone gets when they mistreat their spirits," he replied.

Hey eyes cut down to his hip. "Ooh, another Celestial mage. Yeah, I'm good. You're not worth my time. You might want to help out your friend there, though; my poison's on the verge of killing him."

"Poison?"

"You don't know," she chuckled. Watching his eyes widen as she brought her hands from behind her back, showcasing the crimson and white scales covering her arms, the claws that took place over her hands, was so damn gratifying. "The name's Viper. Poison Dragon Slayer of the Oracion Seis."

"P-Poison Dragon Slayer?!"

She stepped down from the snake again, slinking toward the maroon haired mage as small tendrils of poison leaked from between her lips and off of her claw-tipped fingers. "You've got three Slayers, and you know a fourth. Why is that so surprising?"

"How do you know that?"

"Because I can hear you," she whispered, a wicked grin pulling at her soft pink lips. "I can hear it all. Your fear, your confusion… And your future…"

"My future… What are you talking about?"

"Oh," she laughed. "Just that you're not going to be alive much longer. God, it sounds so…"

He took a small step back when she visibly shivered, licking her lips. _'Okay, we've gone from sexy to funny farm crazy. No, she's putting the funny farm to shame. Lock her up and throw away the key, universe.'_

"So… _Delicious_." She tilted her head to one side, grinning as the punch he'd sent at her missed entirely. "You'll have to try harder than that."

Erik growled and jumped away from her, keeping himself between her and Natsu. "Open, Gate of the-"

"Oh, you've got Taurus?" she growled, laughing when his concentration broke before even pulling the key from his belt and causing the summon to fail.

"What the hell?"

"I _hear_ you," she crooned. "You've got some pretty good plans, but I've heard them all. Virgo to dig some holes. Taurus with brute strength. Sagittarius in case I hop on my snake and start flying around. Really…" She sighed as the snake slithered over, leaning back against its body while its snout brushed over her cheek. "Try harder."

Erik scowled and reached for his whip, watching as her eyes flashed with rage as it uncoiled and snapped against the ground. "How do you know that?"

"I already told you," she laughed. "I-"

"Yeah, you hear me. What the hell does that mean?"

"Guess you'll have to figure that out!"

His whip arced overhead, lashing at her violently while he tried to think of some way to get past her defenses. She dodged every attack, even going as far as grabbing the end of his whip and yanking him forward.

"I can hear your muscles tensing," she hissed, slashing at him with her claws. Small droplets of his blood dotted the ground. "Your heart beating. Everything…"

"So, you can hear what I'm planning. Like a mind reader."

"Try your _soul_ ," she laughed. "Go ahead. Attack me!"

His resolve firmed, Erik abandoned his whip and moved in close.

"Feint right, kick left," she said, blocking the kick sailing toward her head. "Right uppercut." Her head tilted back, leaving several inches of space between his fist and her chin. "Left roundhouse, feint low, kick, punch right, right kick, left… Are you getting the picture?"

Erik drew back, panting with tightly clenched teeth. She hadn't taken a single hit from him. He could see a few spots where the blonde had been singed while fighting with Natsu, which meant there _had_ to be a way to defeat her. His keys required planning, strategy, and there was no way he could use them against someone that could hear his every thought.

"Raspberry's a smart cookie, huh Cubellios?" Viper laughed softly.

 _Hissss…_

"Yeah, I guess we should end this. I'm getting bored."

Erik's eyes widened as crimson poison flew from the snake's mouth, arcing back and slithering between Viper's lips. "Fuck, of course she eats poison… Goddamnit…"

" _Poison Dragon's Twin Fang!_ "

Erik cried out as thick waves of poison shot out from her hands, lashing toward him and coiling around his body. He stumbled back, gasping for breath, his vision spotted.

" _Poison Dragon's Roar!_ "

Feet rooted to the ground, Erik readied himself to take the hit head-on, then grunted as he was tackled to the ground where the poison couldn't reach him. His eyes opened as a familiar body landed on top of him, and he grinned at the head of wild ginger hair and sunglasses over bright hazel eyes. "Loke, you dick," he chuckled.

"That's the thanks I get for saving you?" Loke laughed, helping Erik stand and facing their new enemy. "Let's handle this togeth-" His eyes widened and his jaw dropped when he saw the blonde looking at them with a raised brow and a scowl. "Oh stars, is it my birthday?"

"And you got on Angel's ass about using her spirits," Viper spat.

"Angel used them as tools!" Erik coughed. "I don't! I fight _with_ them."

"I'll be a tool," Loke rasped, eying the blonde up and down. "For a little while, anyway."

Viper's eyes closed for a moment, a small laugh escaping her. "Too bad for you, Leo," she hissed. She jumped onto Cubellios' back, soaring through the sky as the spirit's fists started glowing gold. Scores of light and random lashes of Erik's whip were sent at her, but there was nothing they could do to stop her. She knew it.

"Shit, where is she?!" Erik snapped, standing with his back against Loke's while they searched the debris surrounding them for any signs of movement.

"I don't know," Loke growled. "How is she-"

Erik whirled around as Loke gasped, catching the spirit when he stumbled back.

"I can hear you too, little Lion," Viper growled, pulling her claws from his chest and watching as blood pooled on the fabric of his shirt. Loke started to disappear, and she raised her claws, swiping across Erik's chest, a wide grin on her face as she heard her poison coursing through him. "Celestial spirits are so weak."

"Sh-Shut up…" He groaned as the blonde grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. He felt her claws nearly piercing his throat, how they were lifted into the air, heard the quiet hiss of her snake as they flew higher.

"Depending on anyone but yourself is pointless," Viper growled into his ear. "Understand me, Raspberry? It's a lesson you should've learned a long time ago."

"Fuck you," he spat. "My spirits are my friends! My family!"

"And because you relied on them, you're going to die."

"No!" He struggled in her grasp, grinding his teeth as her poisoned claws dug into his chin. _'No, my spirits are everything to me. They're there when I need them. I love them. I won't let her kill me!'_

"Keep thinking like that," she hissed. "You're dead either way."

"NO!" he roared. The keys on his belt glowed brilliantly, each of the spirits he was contracted to bellowing their support through the bond they shared with their master. Even with his throat raw and his lungs begging for oxygen, he kept yelling. Pouring everything he was into that single sound.

"My ears!" Viper screeched. Her grip on Erik loosened as she grabbed the sides of her head. Her footing faltered, and she fell from Cubellios' back to the ground, the Celestial mage not far behind her.

Erik groaned as he tried to push himself up from the ground, debris digging into his palms and the poison in his veins slowing his movements.

Viper slowly limped over to him, her teeth bared in a snarl. "I… have to defeat you," she rasped. "As one of the six Demon Generals, I…" Her eyes rounded in shock as searing heat shot through her shoulder, blood splattering out onto the ground in front of her, and slowly turned her head to find out who had managed to attack her. "B-Brain…?" she whimpered, falling to her knees.

Erik lifted his head to see a large, tanned man with white hair and tattoos covering his face and chest, grinning down at the blonde from several feet away. _'How did she not hear him?'_

"You did well, Viper," Brain said softly. "Rest in peace."

She pulled in a wheezing breath, despair washing over her as his soul opened up, assaulting her senses.

' _What trash. I never should have wasted my time with her. Just another pathetic excuse for a Dragon Slayer. She'll be easily replaced, though…'_

Erik struggled to move, his head turning toward Viper when he heard a strangled whimper sounding in her throat.

"Oops, did you hear that?" Brain laughed.

"D-Damn you!" she hissed. "B-Brain… M-My prayer…"

"Worthless," Brain sighed. "Absolutely worthless."

 _*.*_

 _Lucy smiled while the small purple snake coiled around her shackled, dirty wrist. Her other hand raised, and she giggled when the snake's tongue flicked across her outstretched finger. "Hello, you," she whispered, making sure to stay quiet so the guards wouldn't hear her. "Will you be my friend?"_

 _*.*_

" _I'll name you Cubellios," Lucy whispered to the snake in the darkened cell. Screams of other slaves echoed in the air, tormented souls wailed so loudly she clenched her eyes and curled in on herself. Her eyes opened again as she felt its cool scales slithering beneath her dirty clothing and resting on her stomach when two guards came into her cell._

 _They dragged her out toward a large man with white hair, and Lucy whimpered in fear. The only thing that helped her relax was that Cubellios was tightly coiled around her stomach. 'Don't leave me alone,' she thought to the snake as five other children were brought in._

 _Her only response was a slight tightening of her only friend around her waist._

 _*.*_

" _I wish I could hear you," Viper sighed. She whimpered and rubbed the scar between her breasts where the lacrima had been implanted two weeks before._

 _The large snake tenderly rubbed her snout over the blonde's chest, then up to her cheek._

 _"Can you talk to me, Cubellios? Can I hear you now?" When all Viper heard was a soft hiss, she found tears welling in her eyes. The door to her room opened, revealing Angel and a terrified ram spirit standing just behind her. "Time for training?"_

 _"Yeah. Brain wants to see how the lacrima is working out." Angel's eyes narrowed and her lip curled in disgust. "Are you crying?"_

 _Viper wiped her eyes while sitting up, giving Cubellios a quick kiss on the snout. "Me?" she smirked. "Hell no. Do I get to use that for a target?"_

 _Aries stumbled forward into the room when she was pushed, and Viper sneered at the terrified pinkette. This would be perfect. She could take her anger out on something._

 _*.*_

"I-I…" Viper sniffled softly, her blurred vision resting on the large serpentine head and jade eyes of her oldest friend. "I only wanted to hear your voice…"

Erik watched as the blonde collapsed to the ground, reaching out for the snake.

"C-Cubellios…"

"She was your nakama!" Natsu groaned, slowly pushing himself up a short distance away from the other mages on the ground.

"Nakama?" Brain chuckled. "Hardly. She was a tool. A poorly made one, at that."

Erik hissed in pain while trying to push himself up again, looking up in shock when he felt the heat surging from the pink-haired Slayer. "Salamander…"

"Rest up, Erik," Natsu growled. "I'll deal with him."

"I can still help," he shot back.

Natsu paused and glared down at the guild's Celestial mage, his anger at what he'd witnessed pouring off of him in scorching waves. "I need you to find Erza, Erik. Make sure she's alright. And if Viper poisoned you, then you need to rest for a bit."

Erik nodded as Happy swooped down and carried Natsu toward Brain, dropping his head to the ground. Viper sniffled at his side, and he turned to look at her, his brow furrowing while he watched Cubellios gently nuzzling her tear-stained cheek.

"I just w-wanted to hear you, Cu," Viper cried softly. "H-He said… I'd hear you…"

"Hey," Erik whispered. It hurt more than he'd ever imagined possible to slide his hand along the ground to lightly grasp her fingers. He suddenly noticed how soft her fingertips were, how delicate her hand was now that the scales along her arms had disappeared.

"F-Fuck you," she hissed, ripping her hand from his. "You've done enough. G-Get away from me, Raspberry…" She snapped her jaws at him weakly when he reached for her again.

Cubellios hissed in warning, towering over the Fairy Tail mage as he forced himself to sit up.

"I'm not trying to hurt her," Erik said cautiously, keeping his hands away from his keys. When he looked down to the blonde, he winced when he saw the blood seeping from her wound, how it tinted the hair draped over her shoulder a sickening pink. "I can help you. You're bleeding out."

"Good," she spat. "I'm dead anyway. L-Leave me alone…" When Cubellios rounded on her, gently nudging her cheek, Viper sighed.

 _Heavy footsteps sounded far in the distance. Determined souls with a single goal in mind._

"Cu, I h-hear them… You need t-to… go…"

"What are you talking about?" Erik frowned.

"Go on, Cu," she whispered, her jaw clenching while she forced herself to kneel. She wrapped an arm around the large snake's head, her injured arm hanging, useless, at her side. "I'll be alright."

Cubellios let out a soft hiss, its tongue tickling the blonde's dirty cheek.

Viper sniffled, a watery laugh escaping her, then tenderly kissed her friend's snout. "I'll find you again, okay? Once I'm able to…"

Erik watched, confused by how gentle the blonde was with the large snake, then tensed his muscles in preparation when the serpent drew back and took to the air. "What the…"

Viper growled and fell forward, glaring at the Fairy Tail mage when he caught her. "Leave her alone," she whispered. "She's innocent."

"Yeah, well-"

"R-Rune Knights… are…" Viper shook her head, her eyes fluttering and her vision darkening. "... coming…"

He sighed as the Poison Slayer went slack in his arms, grimacing when he felt the warmth of her blood seeping into his shirt. His hand brushed over his keys, and he smiled at the familiar head of pink hair that appeared by his side.

"Punishment, Ouji?" Virgo asked, standing from her deep bow.

"Nah, Virgo," Erik smirked. "Maybe later."

The fact that he nearly saw her smile had him shaking his head in amusement.

"Think you can bandage her up?" he asked softly, laying Viper down on the ground. "I get the feeling the Rune Knights won't really care too much about that right away."

Virgo blinked and looked down to the unconscious blonde. "The Poison Dragon Slayer," she whispered, taking in her tattered clothes, shallow breaths, and the gaping wound in her shoulder. "Is she an enemy still?"

"Yeah…"

The maid spirit knelt at her side, a first aid kit appearing in her lap. While she started to bandage the woman, she said, "You might want to refrain from such rigorous activities with women, if this is how they fare afterwards."

"Very funny, Virgo," he chuckled.

She shrugged. "Just a suggestion, Ouji. I could recommend some tools that would-"

"Nope," he laughed. "I'm good. Really. If I need some handcuffs or crazy kink shit, I'll let you know."

A small smirk teased the maid's lips. "Punishment, Ouji?"

"Goddamnit… You're ridiculous," he laughed, collapsing back onto the ground and wiping the sweat from his face. He chanced a glance at the blonde, a sad smile on his lips.

' _All this to hear your friend,'_ he thought. _'You must have been pretty damn lonely, Viper… Wanting to hear a snake's soul.'_

He thought back to his time spent in the Tower, before he'd met Erza and Jellal. How lonely it had been back then. How he had wished every single day that he had someone to talk to. Someone like him that could feel magic running in their veins.

Erza, getting out of that hellhole with her, and helping her get to Magnolia before she had finally collapsed, had been a godsend. Joining Fairy Tail had brightened his dreary life so much.

Being given his first set of keys from a blonde Celestial mage, just passing through town… He'd found a sense of home with those spirits, even though Aquarius was constantly riding his ass about finding a girlfriend. That woman's dying wish, he'd found out from the mermaid spirit, was to find a mage like her. Someone that would love the keys they'd been given like their own family.

He didn't have a family, aside from Erza, so the more the merrier.

But Viper… She had sent her only friend away. To protect the snake and sacrifice herself. _'If things had been different, I bet that would be me lying where you are, Viper…'_

* * *

Seven years had flown by when Erik saw her again. The blonde he'd hoped - and hadn't hoped - to never see again, along with the rest of the Oracion Seis. Some crackpot scheme had been hatched to end the world, and he was the lucky winner that was going to get sucked into a fucking geared, goldfish monstrosity to get the job done.

Seven whole years.

He'd found out that the husband of the woman - Layla, he remembered - that gave him his very first keys had found out what she'd done. And, when the group from Fairy Tail disappeared on Tenrou, he'd used the money he had, being the big tycoon he was, to help keep their guild afloat. Things would have gone downhill so fast if it hadn't been for him.

Jude Heartfilia had made sure they all had a home to return to, and Erik had no idea what he could do to repay the man's kindness. He did know, however, that he needed to pay the man a visit. To thank him in any way he could for his generosity. The Heartfilia Konzern was still running strong, so Erik knew he'd be able to find the man once this was all done.

Seven. Motherfucking. Years, though.

The Seis had definitely aged in that time. They had all changed in one way or another. Midnight's hair was longer, his makeup was heavier, and his clothing choices had moved a little closer to full-on drag. Erik was left wondering if there was still a dick in the Reflector mage's pants, they were so goddamn tight.

Angel's dress had more fucking feathers. It was terrifying. She'd switched her magic out to something he didn't entirely understand. At least she wasn't handling spirits anymore.

But Viper, the one he'd really wondered about once they'd discovered just who was behind it all, she had surprised him the most. Her clothes were relatively the same, except now she wore a deep purple trenchcoat with black fur lining the edges, along with the corset, leather pants, and combat boots.

It was the pointed ears that caught his attention first. Never in his lifetime would Erik have considered something that like to look so fucking _good_ on someone. Every weird Elf fantasy he'd had since reading, and then watching, _The Lord of the Rings_ was roaring back to life while he looked at the blonde from his place in the creepy, oddly cold, orange, slightly gelatinous, glassy substance that was forcing his body to meld with the Infinity Clock.

Her back was to him, mostly, but he knew it was her. The way she was standing was more tense, rigid. Like she'd been told it was her job to shoulder the weight of the world, and if she so much as let it drop an inch, she would be branded a failure and thrown into the depths of hell for all eternity.

It was her hair that really gave it away for him. He'd seen plenty of blondes in his time, but Viper's was nearly gold, and shined like the night sky on top of a mountain.

When she turned to look at Angel, his heart nearly broke. The long scar running down the right side of her face, the eye clearly missing with the lid closed over. What was it that had happened to her in the seven years they'd been missing? He knew the Oracion Seis had been in prison for at least a few months, but was this the result of being in the prison, or something else?

Not a single smirk trailed over her thinned, strawberry-colored lips. He remembered so easily how much she'd grinned when they'd fought before. Sure, she'd looked like a poster child for _Psychos Today_ , but there had been life in her then. Now, her lips barely moved when she spoke, so little that he had a hard time telling she was doing it in the first place. Then again, it seemed like only a syllable or two would escape her before she went right back to looking blank.

What made him feel even more curious - because, really, what else was he supposed to do while having everything from his belly button down, plus his arms, already absorbed by the stupid Clock - was that her snake was nowhere to be seen.

She'd seemed to love that snake more than anything. She'd based her 'prayer', something he'd later come to find out had been a lie that Brain had used to bind the other five members of the Seis to him to lock away Zero, on a single wish that she had. Something she'd wanted more than anything.

But if she loved the thing so much, where the hell was it?

She nodded to Midnight and broke from the group as Angel walked out of the cavernous room, making her way to the Celestial mage who didn't look much older than the last time she'd seen him.

"Why are you doing this?" Erik asked, his saddened indigo eyes boring into the blonde once she was in front of him. "Why would you want to end everything like this?"

"You don't need the answers to anything, Raspberry," she answered flatly. She hated him even more when she heard the way his heart fluttered at the use of that stupid nickname. Why she'd used it, she couldn't be sure, but it was most likely just some leftover nostalgia from seeing the maroon-haired fucknugget. The last time she'd seen Cubellios, he'd been there. That was all it was. "You'll be dead soon, anyway."

He scowled down at her. _'How did she remember calling me that?'_ Either way… Fuck her and all of her bullshit. "My friends are coming for me," he spat. "They'll stop you while I get my ass out of here."

"Sure," she snorted. "Have fun with that. You can't move."

"Why did you even come up here?" He knew she had somewhere else to be. They were all too cocky to have more than one person keeping guard in the room. Midnight, as he was sure they thought, would be more than enough. Anyone to miraculously make it past the others would be too weakened to put up much of a fight. That's what they thought, but he knew better.

His sister was out there, fighting to save him. Erza was hell in a handbasket on a good day, the only things she loved enough to rend the entire world in twain consisting of strawberry cake, Jellal, and himself. The three were tied, the last he knew. And that day… It was most definitely _not_ a good day for the Requip mage.

But, if Erza was there, and he knew she was, it was her rage that he could practically feel thundering through the mechanism he was being sucked into. These shitty little cockgoblins were in for a rude wakeup call.

Viper blinked slowly while staring up at the Celestial mage. "You really think you'll escape."

"I _know_ I will," he hissed. "And when I do, you're gonna be so fucking sorry."

Her head tilted to one side only slightly as he began to struggle. "It's pointless," she said.

"You say that now, but just wait," he sneered. "I'm not giving up to you or anyone else that tries to take me down."

"Because you think the Tower made you stronger?" she whispered, her eye narrowing curiously as he froze. "Y'know… I do have somewhere to be. I hear a redhead is looking for a fight, and I really want to break your spirit before you don't exist anymore."

"You leave Erza alone!" Erik roared. His blood chilled when her eye slid closed and a contented, yet no less demented, smile ticked the corners of her lips. The one time her face changes, and it looked like she was about to cum and on the verge of slaughtering a whole continent in a mindless rage. The first, well that shit was just a sight to behold. It was the other, more prominent, emotion that had him wondering whether his bladder or his asshole was going to give out first.

"God, I haven't heard fear like _that_ in a good long while, Raspberry," she growled. "You keep this up, you might even start turning me on."

"Don't touch my sister, you-"

"Do it," she purred, sidling up just a little closer. "Call me whatever you want. It won't change what happens to her. What I'll do to her, just for you… God, it'll be so much fun to tell you all about it once she's dead."

"Leave her alone," he whispered. "Please."

"Already up to bargaining, huh? Just depression and acceptance left. You move fast."

"Shut up," he hissed.

"If things weren't going to end like this, I'd think you were hinting at wanting to fuck my crazy little brains out. Tell me…" Her eye flashed with wicked delight. "Is that what you want? To wiggle that little Fairy dick in Crazy Elf Town, maybe make me scream and call you Kili? Spank Tauriel, call me a dirty little dwarf lover?"

"What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

"Lots and lots of things," she hissed.

"Viper," Midnight drawled from the bottom of the stairs. "Stop toying with him and get out there."

She glared over her shoulder at their new 'leader' before turning back to Erik. "Here," she whispered. "I'll help you relax." The sheer terror in his soul was echoed back from her in a ring of vibrant, multicolored light, knocking him into near unconsciousness.

The blonde made her way down the stairs, growling under her breath while passing the Reflector mage, "Fucking narcoleptic ladyboy… Unwad your goddamn thong."

"It's a mankini."

"Even worse," she spat over her shoulder.

' _What happened to her?'_ Erik wondered blearily. _'She looks so dead inside. Still just as beautiful, but… She… wasn't like this before…'_

Her teeth ground together while she wandered through the halls in search of the Requip mage she really needed to make suffer. She hated that she went easy on Erik right at the end there. For some reason, hearing what he was thinking while she walked away… It made her realize it didn't matter. She wanted his ass to be conscious while they turned the world into chaos. She wanted him to realize just how futile his fighting, and the fighting of his guild, was. That they couldn't stop this, no matter what they did.

Besides, she couldn't tell him all the gritty details of how his 'sister' died if he was unconscious. And really, that just wouldn't do at all.

* * *

The blonde Poison Dragon Slayer walked through the familiar town from the train station, her hands shaking while looking down at the pages she held.

 _Prisoner 100977 - Viper of the Oracion Seis_

 _Status: Released for assisting in Council matters during the Grand Magic Games, X791. Full pardon._

 _Notes: Details concerning release, classified._

She didn't have anywhere to go. The others were stuck in prison, and there was no way in hell she was going to try and get them out. They wouldn't have tried to get her released if the tables were turned. Every man for himself, that's what they'd been taught.

Trepidation shook her every step as she walked down the lonely path toward Fairy Tail. Kinana was a part of this guild, she remembered. Meeting the purple-haired woman after getting knocked into the side of a mountain by that stupid fucking hammer of Erza's had been a moment worth remembering. She'd really heard Cubellios' voice. Her soul. It was a dream come true, and then she'd had to leave her only friend behind yet again to keep her out of trouble.

She heard only a small snippet of her friend's soul during the Eclipse incident. Why Doranbolt had only released her to fight a fucking dragon, just for her to get locked back up again, she wasn't sure. Just like how she didn't understand why she'd gone back into custody willingly. Except, she had heard the demons of Tartarus were stirring… Sitting in a cell sounded pretty fucking safe to her, but they'd up and released her.

Viper looked up at the daunting sign above the guild, audibly gulping beneath the hood of her cloak. She knew that she wasn't welcome. They were her enemies twice before, and that kind of pain and hatred wasn't something easily forgotten.

Hell, she still hated her parents for being too weak to keep their own three-year-old daughter safe from the men that had raided their carriage. It was why she'd ended up in the Tower, and Brain… He'd told her exactly where she came from. The whole story. He'd even had the newspaper clippings to prove it. Well, they'd told the papers that she was taken, but she knew the truth. They gave her up, sold her to slavers. There were no two ways about it.

She hated her parents, just like she knew that Fairy Tail hated her. But… Cubellios was her only true family, and if this was the place that Viper could be closer to her only friend, then she would just make the best of it. She had to, because otherwise she was just lost. Alone.

She hated that she was so fucking scared of being alone.

The roaring cheers from within assaulted her ears, and she was ready to turn tail and run far the fuck away from it all when she realized just how many souls were inside. Five of them were without bodies, but the rest… God, it was giving her a headache, and she wasn't even in the damn building.

Moments before she could finally start backing away, having decided that it was better for everyone if she just disappeared, the doors to the guild blew open and a body came hurtling toward her.

A quick blast of her Sound magic sent the man soaring back through what she realized was a full-on brawl that had apparently been put on hold. Heads turned from where he crashed into what had to be the sturdiest bar ever created, toward the open doors. To the cloaked figure whose identity they couldn't determine.

' _Now or never. Sac up and do this shit. You can't run away now.'_ She knew there was no chance in hell that she could leave. Someone would chase her - at least four people had readied themselves to do just that as she stood frozen in the entryway - and then all bets were off.

Viper pushed the hood of her cloak back to drape across her shoulders, her single eye locking onto the aged, two-foot-tall man that was sitting on top of the bar. The only one she couldn't hear. The one she knew was the guild's master from the intel she'd been ordered to get seven years before.

Natsu jumped to his feet off to her right, a menacing growl rumbling in his chest and rippling through the guild's foundation, his fists instantly aflame.

Erza stood, brandishing a hellish sword while her eyes hardened into cold, unforgiving steel.

Still, Viper walked through the sudden hush - although, with the venomous thoughts being directed at her, she was more than glad that she was immune to fucking poison - through the throng of sweaty mages, and stopped before Makarov Dreyar.

' _Four Dragon Slayers in the room,'_ she thought. _'Exit behind me. Two windows to my left. Hall to the right leads to locker rooms, bathrooms, and another exit. Stairs to a second floor. Saw some windows outside, so they must be up there. Kitchen's behind the bar, so there's probably another exit that way.'_

Two hundred and fifty-eight heartbeats, three belonging to Exceeds, one to a small child.

Muscles tensing, ready for her to breathe wrong.

She would never tell anyone that she wasn't breathing at all.

"Child," Makarov grinned. "How can I help you?"

She heard the crinkling of the papers in her hands as her grip on them tightened. She knew the packet was wobbling just enough for him to notice as she held them in front of his ancient little face. Six heartbeats passed before she spoke, once he looked from the pages before him directly into her eye.

"I'd like to join," she said.

Heart rates spiked all across the guild. The tension was nearly suffocating her, more so than the overwhelming stench of distrust and rage that scorched her overly sensitive sinuses.

"You say no, I'll leave," she continued. "No questions asked, no drama."

Makarov eyed the blonde, then the faces of his other children. The scowls directed toward the woman that was once their enemy, who was showing an extremely surprising amount of courage in coming to Fairy Tail in the first place. It was clear that she knew no one wanted her there, but she had still showed up, and her voice was surprisingly even while making her request. It seemed the only thing that showed how scared or nervous she was, were her shaking hands.

Viper folded the papers and tucked them into the pocket of the jacket beneath her cloak, slowly nodding as his smile faltered. "No problem. Didn't mean to waste your time. I'll-"

Makarov frowned while reaching down for the guild stamp. "Going so soon?" he asked, nearly pouting. "I was just about to ask you where and what color."

"You…" Viper blinked in shock. "Seriously?"

"Yes, child," Makarov chuckled. "I am super cereal."

"Did you just…" Viper could swear she heard his soul whispering _"Man-Bear-Pig…"_

His grin widened, his deep blue eyes twinkling. "Where and what color?"

She offered her right hand to him. "Fucking insane asylum," she muttered to herself. "Bunch o' batshit motherfuckers in need of some straight jackets, a barrel of Prozac, and fucking Zoloft enemas… What the shit am I getting myself into…"

"What color was that?" he chuckled.

Viper blinked as the stamp was settled on her hand. "Purple."

Kinana walked out of the kitchen with a soft smile on her face, her tray heavy with the drink orders she had to hand out. She paused when she realized just how quiet the guild was, looking up from her notepad filled with the next tray of orders she had to deliver.

Blonde hair. A single, indigo eye. Her hand outstretched before Makarov with the Fairy Tail guild mark appearing on her flesh in a deep purple that matched Kinana's hair.

Flashes of memories scattered through her head, nearly burning in her synapses. Moments with the blonde woman whose voice she'd been hearing in her head for months.

 _Wriggling in her dirty clothes, over fresh lash marks from a whip._

 _Coiling around her to keep warm in the winter._

 _Soaring through the air, hearing her laughter while they both gained a small bit of freedom._

 _Her tears in the middle of the night, when no one else could see or hear her, begging the snake to just say something._

 _The promise she'd made seven years before, barely able to keep herself upright after a hole had been blown through her shoulder, that they would be together again._

The sudden crash of glass on the floor broke the silence in the guild.

' _Lucy… She's here… Oh god, she's here!'_

The guild as a whole protested their newest addition. As loudly as possible.

The blonde's eye cut over to the left, to see the purple-haired woman she'd been searching for staring intently at her. Jade eyes filled with tears and a trembling smile on her lips. "You…"

Erik groaned while pulling himself up to stand, using the bar to steady himself. "Fuck," he whispered. The last thing he'd expected was for someone to barrel into him as soon as he got his footing, knocking him flat on his ass again. "What the shit?"

"Lucy!" Kinana cried. She didn't care who was around, who was watching, as she launched herself at the blonde Poison Slayer.

Viper grunted as the purple-haired bundle of tears collided with her, taking a step back to keep them both upright. She didn't hear the sudden silence in the guild as everyone stared at them in shock. "Cubellios," she whispered. "I missed you."

The two women slowly sunk to their knees in front of the bar, Viper's nose nestling in Kinana's hair, tenderly nuzzling her long-lost friend. Kinana's shoulders shuddered, her body wracked with sobs.

Erik stared along with the rest of the guild, his eyes wide and slightly horrified. _'Cubellios… Wait, that was… Oh shit!'_

Viper's eye slowly opened to look at the Celestial mage, and she quietly sniffled and blinked away the tears that dripped from her lashes.

" _That's your secret,"_ Erik silently told her. _"I heard nothing…"_ He also would never admit to seeing her cry. The evidence was gone as quickly as it had come, so fast he was questioning whether it had happened at all.

Her hand curled around the back of Kinana's head, and she nodded in silence. "I've gotcha, Cu," she whispered. "I'm never letting go again." And she wasn't going to forget what Erik told her. She could hear that he was serious. He was never going to mention to anyone what he'd heard.

"L-Lucy," Kinana sniffled. "I-It's you… It's really…"

"Really, really," she sighed. Her grip on the purple-haired barmaid tightened, just as much as the arms around her did.

Erik carefully stood up again, then slowly made his way over to Viper and Kinana. With a gentle smile, once she looked up at him again, he said, "Welcome to Fairy Tail, Viper."

* * *

A month had gone by since Viper first showed up at Fairy Tail, but not a whole lot had changed. She sat at one corner of the bar, a stool that had been all but branded with her name, sitting empty when she wasn't there, and only spoke to two people. Technically, three, but Erik didn't count all that much.

Kinana was her sole source of companionship. No one had a clue as to just why the barmaid was allowed anywhere near the blonde, or why they'd hugged as though they were old friends. She had checked.

It hurt that the woman who had once been Cubellios didn't remember everything about their past, but just knowing that she felt the soul links that were forged between them, that she remembered the most important things about their lives, was enough for Viper. Or, as Kinana (and only Kinana, so fucking help her) called her, Lucy.

Gajeel, the ornery Iron Dragon Slayer that she'd yet to meet before that she'd joined the guild, was more like an annoying gnat that she just couldn't shake. It wasn't even that he talked all that much, and really, she _could_ stand the constant crunching of metal - simply because he at least chewed with his mouth closed to lessen the unholy shrieks of metal on metal. It was more of the fact that she didn't want companionship outside of Kinana. He, however, was adamant about getting her to open up.

If she hadn't known better, she would have thought he might have been trying to get into her pants. But, between him actually being afraid her vagina had teeth and spat acid fifty yards or more at will, and the fact that he was head over heels for the guild's Requip mage - not that the female knight was aware of it, what with her utter obsession with Jellal… and cake - Viper knew that Gajeel wasn't interested in her as anything more than… Whatever the hell it was. Friendship, maybe. Or just someone to sit near that wouldn't bother him.

And sure, she'd been alright with him being in her general vicinity in the beginning when she realized he wasn't going to try anything, but that had been because he wouldn't talk to her. And then he'd gone and changed it. It had started with a snide comment to Natsu, and Gajeel elbowing her in the side for her agreement to back it up - which, she'd simply nodded concerning his statement that Natsu was _"as dumb as shoving glass bottles up yer ass and doing a cannonball onto a sledgehammer"_ \- and eventually escalated to him greeting her with a low grunt in the mornings.

And then whole sentences started spilling out of him. And she hated it. Well, outwardly, she hated it. She growled and glared and snarled, cursed him out, even threatened him with death by rusting dick piercings, but it had only garnered laughter from the crimson-eyed mage. And really, some of the shit he thought about, while decidedly much darker than what she thought Fairies should be thinking about, was a treasure trove of fucked up-ness that she supported.

She was the guild's resident Patron of the Demented. She rather liked that.

But, for the most part, people left her alone. Erik tried talking to her from time to time, but she could tell it was more of a courtesy and him trying to get the guild to see that she wasn't their enemy anymore. Mira said a few words to her here and there, only when Kinana was busy and she decided to try taking the blonde's order. Makarov seemed to know that she just wanted to be left alone, but she'd caught him giving her encouraging smiles on occasion that she was sure meant he would be willing to talk if she wanted.

"You look awfully lonely."

Viper fought not to roll her eye at the smoother than silk baritone voice that was far too close to her ear. "Fuck off, Laxus."

"C'mon, Blondie," he chuckled. "You'd probably be mildly passable if you at least smiled."

Viper wondered if that line had ever actually worked on a woman. What kind of idiot would swoon over the cocky prick talking shit to her damn face? Really, it was just fucking sad. "And you would be less of a pathetic excuse for a man if you didn't cum just from touching your dick to take a piss in the morning. I pity your walls."

She saw the flash of anger in his stormy eyes, and smirked. Point one for her.

"How about you have your walking blow-up doll over there…" Viper paused and gestured toward Freed still sitting at the Raijinshuu's table. "Give you a nice rub-and-tug with his more than willing virgin asshole? Then you can handle those homosexual urges you're questioning and leave me the fuck _alone_."

Laxus took a small step back as the final emphasized word had several tendrils of vile smelling poison leaking from her mouth. "Y'know, you wouldn't be such a stuffy bitch that everyone fucking hated if you'd shut your mouth and open your legs."

"Right, but I've got this thing called dignity. Ask your Greenie Mankini what it means. He'll explain it in smaller words for you."

"Then again," Laxus growled, "Who would be stupid enough to try and fuck _you_?" He started to walk away, mumbling, "Crazy slut would just poison them with her toxic twat anyway."

Her lips thinned and before she knew what she was doing, Viper was standing and the leg of her stool was sliding from her hand, sending the seat on a direct path to Laxus' back. "Fuck you, Minuteman!"

"You're gonna regret that," Laxus growled.

Erik turned his head with a frown when a bolt of lightning scorched the pillar just behind Erza's head. She was lost in her weird cake-land fantasy again, mumbling sweet nothings to the spongy dessert while she slowly consumed it, so he knew she wasn't aware of what had just happened.

What he found, however, was the last thing he'd expected.

Viper was squaring off against Laxus, with only the Lightning Slayer using his magic to attack. She was snarling wildly, but Erik hadn't a clue what the two were fighting over. Or why she was able to land a hit on one of the fastest mages in their guild in the first place.

"Aw, man!" Natsu whined. "Why is he fighting Viper? Laxus never wants to fight me!"

"Because yer annoying, Salamander," Gajeel chuckled from the next table over. "And she pissed Sparky off."

"What happened?" Erik asked, his eyes never leaving the fight. Especially not when Viper cracked another stool over Laxus' head.

"He said she needed a good fuck so she'll chill the hell out," Gajeel shrugged. "Gotta say, he's not wrong…"

"Gajeel," Levy frowned, looking up from her book. "Not everything a woman does is because she needs to have sex."

"Well, she did say a bunch about him," Gajeel shrugged again. "Some pretty nasty shit she was spewing."

"Nastier than her poison?" Natsu chuckled. "Man, think of the poor sucker that would be stuck kissing _that_."

"Yeah, no thanks," Gajeel laughed. "Pretty sure she'd kill his ass first."

"Maybe that's why she needs to get laid," Natsu hummed thoughtfully. "No one wants to kiss her."

"Not like a guy wants her knowin' he's picturing someone else while they're fuckin'," Gajeel nodded. "That shit's just fuckin' creepy."

Erik shook his head, his hand covering his face. Really, the two had to be aware that Viper could hear them talking about her. He sure as hell was.

It was even more obvious when she stopped her fighting with Laxus to glare at the two Slayers who were otherwise oblivious to her sudden attention.

Laxus grunted as he was pushed away from the blonde with what he now knew was her Sound magic. "Yeah, walk away, Blondie!" he called as she stormed to the entrance. His triumphant smirk faltered when he turned back to the bar to find Kinana, Mira, and his grandfather glaring at him angrily. "What?"

"That was uncalled for, Laxus," Kinana hissed. "Why would you do something like that?"

"Tch, whatever."

Erik stared at the closing guild doors for all of thirty seconds before he was up and moving away from the table. No one else seemed to have noticed that the blonde had left. No one was going after her to make sure she was alright. Kinana, for obvious reasons, was stuck at the guild. Gajeel was still ragging on her with Natsu about her poison, or her magic in general, affecting her ability to be a half-decent lay.

She didn't have anyone else.

No one that she talked to, no one that even gave a shit about whether she was upset.

Sure, she wasn't exactly the nicest person to be around, but he knew that Viper had to be lonely. And that was what propelled him through the doors and out into the street. Only to find her walking briskly along the ledge of the canal with her arms crossed over her chest and her head lowered.

"Fuck off, Raspberry," Viper called to the approaching footsteps behind her. "I don't wanna talk."

"Laxus is a dick, alright?" Erik said as he jogged to catch up with her.

She glared down at him. "I figured that much out already."

"You shouldn't let that shit get to you," he said. "You're probably the first person to turn him down."

She shook her head then, ignoring where her feet were being placed as she looked out across the canal. It wasn't even a matter of the only other Second Generation Slayer hitting on her that had irked her so much.

It was that Bickslow had a bet with him to see who could get into her pants first. Just another conquest. Well, she knew it was mostly joking on Bickslow's part, because he was secretly more familiar with taking a dick in the mouth than all the women in the guild, combined.

But Laxus was serious about it. He'd thought he could throw whatever bullshit out that he wanted, and she'd swoon and fall cunt-first into his lap.

"Hey, Erik!" the fishermen across the canal called, waving from their boat. They avoided looking directly at the blonde by his side.

Erik grinned and waved back. "Catch something good, guys!"

"Must be nice," she mused quietly. "People liking you."

He frowned up at Viper, pausing in his step for a moment while she kept walking before rushing to catch up to her again. "People like you," he said.

"Don't fucking lie to me," she snorted. "Even _you_ don't believe that."

"It'll take some time for the guild to come around. Just be patient."

Viper shook her head while hopping down from the ledge. "You're wasting your breath, Raspberry," she sighed. "You didn't hear what he was thinking… What they're all thinking…"

Erik's frown deepened when the small hint of sadness in her single lavender eye was gone in an instant, her usual cocky smirk taking root on her lips while she stood in front of the bridge that crossed the canal.

"Besides, do you _really_ think I give a shit if people like me?"

He watched in silence as she turned and walked away from him, most likely heading to her apartment. Really, no one but Kinana knew what Viper did in her free time. And even then, he wasn't sure just how much the barmaid really knew. Or how often they even spent time together.

' _I like you, Viper,'_ he thought as he watched her fade into the crowd on the other side. _'I just wish I could tell you…'_ With a heavy sigh, he turned and made his way back toward the guild. Maybe it was time to take a job with Erza again. Get away from the guild for a few days.

A heavy sigh spilled past Viper's lips while she crouched in an alley on the other side of the canal, her arms barred around her waist. _'I know you do, Raspberry,'_ she thought. _'But… I'm not good enough for someone like you… I never will be…'_

After several minutes spent in silence, she shook her head and stood, then made her way out of the alley toward the woods. Her already miserable day had been made so much fucking worse, and she really needed to just binge-eat some poison ivy and watch some shitty horror movies for a bit. Maybe when she woke up the next day, things wouldn't hurt so much. She wouldn't feel as lonely.

She wasn't very optimistic about that, though.

* * *

Erik's smile was infectious. Everyone that saw it wanted to, and usually did, smile right along with him. He was enigmatic, with a heart of gold. He really cared about the people he'd come to see as nakama.

Viper knew all of this within the first day of being a Fairy Tail mage, but that day it was so much more apparent. Something big was happening, and the Celestial mage was nearly vibrating in his seat a few stools away from her, he was so fucking excited.

Apparently, he was the only one who knew just what was going to happen. The only problem was that she couldn't pick it out from listening in like she usually did. There was too much going on in his head for her to sort it out without getting a headache.

So, she just decided to let herself be surprised for a change.

Surprises were good things, or so she'd been told.

She heard the doors to the guild opening, and narrowed her eye when the scent of expensive cologne wafted through the air.

' _Is that really him?'_

' _No way!'_

' _Holy shit, that's…'_

She kept her eyes on the glass of bleach in front of her, swirling the little green olives that had been skewered with a toothpick in the chemicals.

"Erik Scarlet," came the deep bass voice off to her side.

"Jude Heartfilia," Erik grinned. He stood and wrapped the man in a warm hug, laughing all the while. "I didn't think you'd be able to make it out here."

"Well, I will not be able to stay for long," the man sighed. "There is some business I must attend to a little further west."

"Building more railroads? That'd sure make our jobs a whole lot easier." The two sat down at the bar, and Erik waved Kinana over to order some drinks.

"Yes, I'm planning on continuing the line out toward the Magic Council, at the very least," Jude said. "We'll create a centralized hub there, with another larger hub here in Magnolia, and a third in Crocus. The town will boom with tourism, but that should also promote sales in your guild's gift shop, as well as here at the bar. You all may even gain some more mages."

"Always moving forward," Erik laughed. "You look into SE vehicles like I mentioned?"

"There's not much to be made from them, I'm afraid," Jude sighed. "They consume too much magic for most to use them for extended periods of time."

"Sure, but you could probably hire some guys to do some research. There's gotta be a better way to channel the magic than what's already available."

"Perhaps," Jude chuckled. "But-"

"There is."

The two paused in their conversation to look at the blonde a few seats away, finding her hair shadowing her face as she glared at the glass before her.

"Pardon me?"

"What do you mean, Viper?" Erik asked curiously.

"I mean just that," she shrugged. "There's a better way than the bullshit we've got now. No mage wants metal prongs digging into their arm and ripping the magic out of them. It hurts, even if it's unconsciously painful, and makes the mage restrict how much they'll put out."

"And what would the solution be?" Jude asked, his eyes calculating as he looked at the woman.

"Get some scientists _and_ those dickbags down in Magical Research from the Council to work together. Create an engine that can pull in and multiply ethernano from the atmosphere as if it was its own magical container. Change the prongs to a band that absorbs what mages naturally give off, that can be adjusted if necessary. Simple."

"That is hardly a simple undertaking," Jude chuckled good-naturedly.

"Fine, don't believe me," she shrugged, lifting her glass to her lips when Kinana brought Jude's and Erik's drinks over. "Don't blame me when Junelle gets that shit first, because he's already looking into it. He's only got scientists though, not the Council. He doesn't know about Vera Mikku, or how she's already trying to develop an artificial magical container. Then again… he's beaten you to the punch six times in the last twelve years, so he might get them first."

Jude's eyes widened as she tipped her glass back, guzzling down the clear liquid that reeked of toxic chemicals. He was ready to ask just how she would know any of the information she'd just spouted. _'Vera Mikku. Who is that?'_ The glass was slammed to the counter, and he dropped his own drink when she turned to glare at him.

She was everything his Layla had been years before, except for the missing eye and her other being a shade of purple that it hadn't been when she was born. The same nose, the same lips, the same heart-shaped face.

"Don't mistake this," Viper sneered. "This isn't a happy family reunion."

Erik frowned and placed a hand on Jude's arm as he stood to move closer to the blonde, shooting her a glare when he felt the man trembling.

"L-Lucy?" Jude whispered. "You… You're alive…"

"Jude?" Erik whispered. "You know Viper?"

The Heartfilia tycoon stepped closer, a helpless smile on his lips and tears welling in his eyes. "M-My little girl is alive…"

"What the hell?" Erik gasped, turning back to the blonde Slayer. "Are you serious?"

"Come any closer, and I won't hesitate to poison you, old man," she hissed.

He drew back when Erik pulled his arm, thick blond brows furrowed. "What happened to you?" Jude asked breathlessly. "Where have you been?"

"Shouldn't matter to you," she spat. Why she'd even made her presence known to the man - if he could be called that - she wasn't sure.

"Wait a damn second," Erik said, his eyes wide and nearly toppling from his skull. " _You're_ … Jude's daughter…?"

"Biologically," Viper hissed. "Nothing more."

"And… Jude, you thought she was dead?"

"I-I did," the man whispered shakily. "Y-You look just like Layla..."

"Raspberry, he's gonna…" She stopped herself, a wicked grin curling her lips while looking up into Jude's eyes. "Nevermind. _I'll_ help him." A low, demented laugh spilled from the blonde as her lips parted, poison leaking out and seeking the man who'd once been her father as she blew him a kiss.

Erik cursed and caught Jude when he collapsed, holding his breath and dragging the man away from the noxious crimson and black cloud that Viper was in the process of sucking back into herself. "Wendy! Jude's been poisoned!"

The little Sky Slayer was there in a flash, and Erik rounded on the blonde after laying Jude down on the floor, his fists clenching and quivering in his anger.

"Aw, poor Daddy," Viper scoffed.

"What the hell is your problem?!" Erik bellowed.

"Me?" she asked, feigning innocence. "Why, nothing at all." The mask broke a moment later while she grinned maniacally down at her father. "Now that I've gotten back at him. Too bad the bitch is dead already. I would've loved ripping them apart…"

"You don't know anything about Layla," Erik sneered. Viper's eyes cut down to the keys he was clutching. "She was-"

"The reason for a good deal of pain in the world," Viper shrugged. "A failure at everything in life." She stood and stepped closer to the shaking Celestial mage. "Go ahead and hate me," she whispered. "You're not the first, and you certainly won't be the last, to do it. I'm heading home. If you want to keep the illusions you have of those bastards intact, _don't_ follow me."

Erik glared at her retreating back until the doors closed behind her, then turned and looked down at Wendy as she drew the poison from Jude's body. "How is he?"

The blunette frowned up at him. "There was hardly anything deadly," she whispered. "It was mostly chloroform…"

"This is bullshit!" Erik roared. He was getting to the bottom of this, one way or the other. Viper couldn't say the things she had, make them believe that Jude was going to die, then walk the hell off like it wasn't a huge fucking deal. Not without some serious explaining.

"Erik, wait!" Erza called as her brother ran out of the guild. She frowned when Gajeel's gloved hand grasped her elbow.

"Let him go," he whispered. "Might be the push he needs to get over her crotchety ass."

With his blood boiling, Erik Scarlet ran through Magnolia to the place Viper called home. He only knew where it was because he'd seen her walking out of the apartment building and heading to the guild one morning when he'd come back from a mission. Far on the outskirts of town, as far away from people as she could get, in a little rundown apartment complex that looked like it was on the verge of being condemned.

He stormed inside, jumping over the first three steps that had rotted out to vault himself up the stairs. They creaked and groaned under his weight, a few nearly giving up on existence altogether when his boots thundered over them. Erik didn't care about being stealthy. She already knew he was coming.

He wasn't sure how he knew that she lived on the third floor, but once he'd reached it, the Celestial mage stormed over to the open doorway to find the blonde sitting on her couch and watching the lacrimavision.

"Don't you dare slam my door," she said. "Close it like a civilized person, then sit the fuck down."

He slammed it anyway. Then stood in front of her, blocking her vision of the show she was watching. With his arms crossed over his angrily heaving chest, Erik scowled down at her. "Tell me what your fucking problem is," he spat. "Why would you do that?"

"Knock him out?" She let out a humorless laugh. "Because if he didn't calm down, he would've had a heart attack."

"That's hardly showing him mercy!"

"True, I was more concerned with the guild's prime benefactor not kicking the bucket. He lives, the money stays solid. He dies, the guild could easily tank."

"Fairy Tail isn't that fucking desperate for money, and even if we were... He's a friend of the guild! Don't you have any sense of honor? Loyalty?"

"Sure, I do," she nodded. "I'm loyal to the ones that deserve it. There's only one person that's earned it from me. The rest of you can go fuck yourselves."

"And how do you expect to have more people gain that level of trust from you if you just snap at them at every opportunity?"

"Because no one else _wants_ that from me," she sneered. Slowly, she leaned to the side, peering around him to switch off the show. "Now, sit the fuck down and listen."

"Why should I? You're just a fucking liar," he whispered. "You're hateful and cruel."

"I am. But you came to _me_. Not the other way around."

It was then that he noticed the thin scrapbook on the coffee table in front of her. The fact that she even had a coffee table was surprising. Just as the fact that her apartment, for all the flaws of the building itself, was fucking gorgeous. Sure, it was a simple studio apartment, and there wasn't even a door that led to the bathroom, but a beaded curtain. Still, the place had a homey feel to it.

Pale cream-colored walls were accented with deep mahogany mouldings. Beautifully framed art of forest landscapes and exotic snakes hung here and there on the walls. A single shelf held a picture of the blonde and Kinana out in a field.

It took only a second for him to see that her small kitchenette was spotless with shining black marble countertops and chrome appliances. That her bed was covered in a mossy green duvet that had splashes of browns and golds in the embroidery.

Slowly, Erik took a seat next to her, looking from his surroundings back to the glaring, blonde bundle of hatred.

"If you say 'nice place,' I'm castrating you."

"... Wow."

Viper leaned forward and flipped the scrapbook open, thumbing through the worn, yellowed pages that she'd glued together herself. She finally paused on a page that only had an envelope taped to it, and pulled the paper from inside it.

"What-"

"Shut up," she hissed, levelling him with a hard glare. "Yes, I knocked him out with chloroform and some of my poison got mixed in. That's inevitable. I could just as easily have killed that sorry excuse for a father, and had my happy ass sent back to prison."

"So that's why-"

"I said _shut up_ ," she snapped. "Draw your own conclusions _silently_ , you ignorant fuck!"

"Wow." He should have expected her to slap him for speaking. He hadn't. And damnit, that shit hurt.

"You know nothing about me, asshole," Viper hissed. "Not my past or the shit I've been through that led to today. So, I'm gonna give you a fucking lesson."

"The last time I got a lesson from you, you were trying to end the damn world," he grumbled. She smacked him again, with the scrapbook that time.

"Once upon a fucking time," she sneered. "Jude and Layla Heartfilia had a baby. Little blonde girl with bright brown eyes. The world was rainbows and skittle-shitting unicorns until she was three. The papers say the girl was abducted during a raid while the happy-go-lucky family was on a carriage. What they don't say is the truth."

Erik frowned when the page in her hand was thrown in his face. He carefully lifted it, his eyes narrowing in confusion when he saw it was an article from a newspaper.

"Daddy Jude and Mama Layla weren't fit parents," she continued, bitterness seeping from her pores. "They didn't want to deal with unicorns or any of the other bullshit that came with the little blonde package they'd made. Not when they realized that she didn't get Layla's magic, or Jude's lack of it. She could hear their fucking souls, and it scared them. So they sold her. Made a quick buck off the kid while the pickings were good and didn't bat an eye over the fact that she was a slave."

"S-Slave?" he whispered, looking back up into her single indigo eye.

"Sold and sold again, shipped to a fucking island. Lemme tell ya, I'm _great_ at construction now." The sudden trickle of fear down his ramrod straight spine did nothing to her. She wanted to smile over it, but she couldn't. "I spent a few years in the Tower before Brain bought me. The rest is history. He told me the fucking truth, showed me the paper in your hand."

"But…"

"The moral of this story, _kiddo_ ," she sneered. "Everyone else is only there to stab you in the back and let you down when you can't defend yourself. There's no one in the world that you can trust, because once you let your guard down… That's it. You're done for."

"Explain Kinana, then," he whispered.

"We bonded when she didn't have the ability to lie to me. When I couldn't even hear her. We helped each other survive. And now… She's so happy to have me back that she'll never turn on me."

"And what about you… Aren't you glad she's back?"

"She never left. I did." Viper turned to look down at the scrapbook cover that was made from paper mache she'd scrounged together, then painted with moistened charcoal. "Sometimes, you should just take what you see on the cover," she whispered. "You start digging, and that's when people get hurt."

"I don't understand…"

"You're not supposed to, Raspberry. Get out."

"Wait."

"I swear on Zeref's unholy motherfucking existence," she growled. "If you don't get out of my apartment, I will dismember you and eat your fucking body. I don't want you here. And you tell that shitty meatsack that I'm not his goddamn daughter."

"But-"

"Lucy Heartfilia died when she was locked in the Tower. I didn't have a name when I came out, and I've been Viper ever since Brain named me. That's what I am now."

"Don't you mean 'who'?"

"Do I?" She let him stew for only a moment, then stood and opened the door to her apartment. He followed her, his face and soul both as confused as she wanted him to be, and once he was outside, Viper silently closed the door and locked it.

She didn't care that he hadn't moved an inch, or that she could hear him trying to work things out in his head. Erik wasn't important. She didn't want him to be.

But, as she slid down her door with head in her hands, with shallow, shaky breaths slipping past her lips before she bit them, she realized he was important. She hated him for it, and she hated even more the tears that spilled down her cheek at the thought of him knowing even a little more about her.

He stood in the hallway for far too long, staring down at the newspaper clipping in his hand.

 _Heartfilia Heiress, Lucy Heartfilia, Abducted_

The picture of a three-year-old blonde girl with the brightest smile he'd ever seen, clinging to her mother and father's hands as they posed for the portrait, made his heart clench painfully. He knew what Viper had told him was a lie. It didn't mesh with the man he knew Jude to be, or the woman that he'd known Layla to have been. They were kind, fair, and good people. They'd made him want to be the kind of man he'd become.

If any good could come out of this experience, it would lie with Jude. The man deserved to know what had happened to his daughter, and why the woman now known as Viper couldn't bear to be around him. Erik knew it would hurt Jude to find out the lies that Viper had been fed her whole life, but it would be more painful for him to think she knew he loved her and still hated him. At least, if he showed the clipping to Jude, that she at least held onto it even though she thought it was a lie, he would have a little piece of mind.

Slowly, and much more cautiously than when he'd arrived, Erik made his way down the stairs. Once he was safely outside, he turned and looked back up at the building, to the window that he knew led to her apartment, boarded up to keep the sunlight and burglars at bay. Splintered shutters creaked as they swung in the soft breeze blowing by. It looked dead, as though the life had been sucked right out of it.

It suited her, he realized. The building showcased just what Viper was inside. Broken and on the brink of collapse. Abandoned. Unloved. Neglected. She'd found a home in a place where most others shied away, because that was where she felt she belonged. He knew it wasn't a matter of her not having the money for something better. She could have stayed at Fairy Hills if she'd needed somewhere to go.

But she hadn't chosen that route. Viper chose to close herself off from everyone around her, and now, with the newspaper clipping in his hand and the words she'd whispered to him rattling around in his head, he felt like he was starting to understand her a little better.

* * *

Jude Heartfilia was gone from the guild by the time Viper returned two days later. Erik refused to speak to her, and that was something that she was fine with.

Three months flew past, and Erik hadn't said a single word to her. He hadn't looked in her direction, and when they were in the guild at the same time, he was there just long enough to grab a mission and leave. She didn't want to dwell on the odd empty feeling she had from what he was doing. She couldn't.

Granted, she was spending less time at the guild as it was. She didn't want to be around anyone, and knowing that Erik had taken the only copy she'd had of that article concerning her parents had broken something inside of her. Viper hadn't realized there was anything left to break, but she'd been wrong.

As it was, another two months passed and she was finally finding a reason to return to the guild. Mainly because the heating in her apartment didn't work, and she was far more prone to getting cold than she would have liked. She'd missed the huge Thanksgiving feast they hosted at the guild. There wasn't anything for her to be thankful for, and no one wanted her there anyway, so Viper chose to stay home and - although she would never admit it - cry into her bowl of soup while watching a slasher film… Or six...

But, as December had reared its ugly, far too fucking cold head, there she was. Sitting alone at the bar.

Gajeel was sitting next to Erza, his arm slung over her shoulders and his fingers lightly caressing her arm. Viper had missed quite a bit, considering she hadn't known that Erza got over her obsession with Jellal. The Iron Slayer looked happy though, so that was good, she supposed.

Erik was nowhere to be seen. No one was thinking about him, and from what she could tell, there wasn't anything amiss in how he'd been acting.

She hated that she was trying to find out if he was okay.

She could hear Kinana and Mira in the kitchen though, and the fact that the two barmaids were sharing several tender kisses while working together had the blonde Slayer smiling secretly into her glass of whiskey and Windex. Kinana had been by only days before, worried out of her mind over her blossoming feelings for the demon barmaid, and Viper… Well, she'd felt obligated to put her friend's mind at ease by saying that she needed to just talk with the woman.

The worst that would happen, she'd told Kinana, was that she would be back at Viper's apartment, cuddling on the couch with her instead.

She was never happier to spend the night by herself watching movies than that one in particular. Her friend deserved some happiness, and if Mira was where she could find it, then Viper was going to be supportive of it.

The doors to the guild banged open, and the Poison Slayer had to carefully set down her glass when she heard his laughter. Erik came into the guild with Natsu by his side, joking about something or other that had happened on their most recent job.

" _Damn, Viper's here. I'll order my food in a bit,"_ she heard Natsu grumble. She couldn't explain it, but the fact that the Fire Slayer refused to even come to the bar due to her presence fucking stung. And it had her taking the half-empty glass she'd just set down and carrying it over to a table tucked in a darkened corner. It was a little quieter, so that was a plus, but the sudden swarm of guild members that flocked to the bar once she was gone had her wishing she'd just stayed home.

" _Not cool, Natsu,"_ she heard Erik's scowl through his voice. _"She's not that bad."_

" _She poisoned Jude, man. That's not cool."_

" _She's still a fucking person."_

" _Barely,"_ Natsu grumbled.

She was sure, right then, that it had been a mistake to join Fairy Tail all those months ago. Erik had told her, Kinana had told her… hell, Gajeel had even told her to loosen the hell up and try being nicer to people. She hadn't wanted to though.

Viper hadn't been able to find it in herself to trust any of the members of Fairy Tail, and she couldn't find a reason for them to trust her either. For months, she'd done nothing but spit in all their faces, tearing anyone down that came remotely close to being civilized toward her.

In fact, she deserved to be hated. Before joining, she would have relished how much they hated her. How much she was feared. But, as she looked out across the guild and saw all of the happy, smiling faces of these people, mages she'd mocked that had something she'd never once gotten to experience, Viper hated that she couldn't be more like them.

Erik paused in his step while making his way over to the table Erza and Gajeel had commandeered, his gaze instantly honing in on the blonde that had been plaguing him for months. Really, the comments that were made about her had gotten old a week after she'd joined.

Sure, Viper wasn't the most sociable person, but she talked to people when it suited her. It was just very rare.

Yes, she was pretty fucking venomous, with her magic and with her words. But it just showed her intelligence. He was pretty sure she'd never repeated an insult.

No, she hadn't opened up to anyone, but not everyone had to be the life of the party.

Okay, so she didn't trust people, and no one trusted her, but he was sure that she'd be more willing to _try_ if people gave her an opening. As it was, there might as well have been a whole continent between her and the rest of the guild.

The worst part, in his opinion, was that there was a whole lot more that Erik knew he wasn't hearing. That only Viper got to hear, because she was forced to listen in on people's souls. It was no wonder the blonde acted the way she did sometimes. He was sure he'd be much the same way if he'd had to deal with that part of her magic.

He started walking toward her table instead of his original destination, watching her blank expression for any small change. By the time he was sitting down across from her, he half-believed she was practicing to be one of those weird living statue attractions.

Erik had watched her single eye staring down into the amber liquid that filled her glass the whole way over. She didn't even seem to notice that he'd appeared at her table, but he was sure she was just coming up with new ways to insult him for even thinking that she would want someone to talk to.

"Viper," Erik whispered, leaning forward with his elbows on the tabletop. "You doin' okay? Looks like something's bothering you…"

She knew that was the understatement of a lifetime. She was far from okay right then. How someone like _him_ had picked up on it, she hadn't a clue. "I'm fine, Raspberry," she said, sparing him a quick glance.

"You're never giving that up, are you?" he chuckled.

"Not. Fucking. Ever." She lifted her glass to Kinana to signal another round, a tiny smile quirking up one corner of her lips. "You're always gonna be that little shitstain Raspberry to me."

"I feel like I should be offended. Should I be offended?"

"You tell me, kiddo."

"Y'know," he frowned. "We'd be about the same age if I hadn't-"

"Maybe," she nodded. "But that doesn't really matter." When Kinana brought over her fresh drink, Viper downed the one that she had and placed the empty glass on the tray. "Thanks, Cu."

"Sure thing, Lucy," Kinana smiled. "Here, Erik. Mira had me bring your drink over here."

"Awesome, Kinana," he grinned. "Thanks."

The pair fell into an awkward silence once the barmaid left, and Viper found herself chancing a small glance at the Celestial mage across from her when she knew he wasn't looking.

He was still handsome, just the way she remembered him being when they'd first met. His slanted, amethyst bedroom eyes were still so vibrant. So alluring. She'd noticed over the months that he definitely looked stronger. It was hard not to when his clothes got a little roughed up and bared his chest in the guild brawls. Or when she caught him coming back inside from the training grounds, wearing a nearly transparent tank top that was soaked through with sweat.

Still, no matter what she thought about Erik, there was nothing that she could do about her silent desire for him. He was untouchable, especially for her.

He would never want to be with her anyway, regardless of the amount of times she'd caught him thinking about her in the guild. It was usually just him wondering about who she really was. Most often though, he was trying to picture what it would look like when she genuinely smiled. When she wasn't in pain or being an asshole or anything else, but when she was simply happy.

She didn't even know what that looked like anymore.

' _Just do it already. Ask her. The worst she can do is say no, then you can go back to not thinking about her all the time.'_

Viper's jaw tensed as she stared intently at her glass.

"So," Erik said hesitantly. "I've got a question for you."

"No."

"... Huh?"

"You heard me," she growled. "I said no. You don't have to ask. I hear you. So take your fucked up fantasies of me dressing up as some creepy elf and fucking me into the next century, and go die in a goddamn fire."

"Wh-What? I never said…" He flinched when her gaze lifted, showing him nothing more than pure hatred in the glare of her single eye.

"You don't have to. I _hear_ you."

"Just because I'm thinking-"

"You were two seconds away from making an ass out of yourself. I saved your fucking pride. Now, go grab your Jergens and leave me the fuck alone, Raspberry."

Erik finished his drink and scowled as he stood up. "You're a real bitch sometimes, y'know that?" he muttered. _'Saved my pride, my ass…'_ He was sure it hurt a whole lot more that he hadn't even had a chance to ask her out to dinner. Erza, while she didn't like Viper in the slightest, had been urging him to just get it over with. She'd said, with the way that Viper actually let him even talk to her, there was a chance it would work out.

"I know," the blonde crooned, a shark-like grin spreading across her face. "It's wonderful to be me." Her grin stayed in place as he stormed off and left the guild, slowly settling into a smug grin.

' _I should've known it was a stupid idea. Goddamnit, Erik… Way to go…'_

Once he was outside, she sighed and took a slow sip of her drink. For all the shit she'd been giving herself over how she'd acted lately, it had been so easy to go right back to it when she should have done something different for a change. She knew what he'd wanted to ask her, and she would never admit out loud that seeing how hurt he was by her words made her gut clench, but it was for the best.

It was better for both of them if he didn't try anything like that again. Nothing good would come from it. She couldn't let the guild's nicest guy try to win her over, to put himself out there over and over just to get shut down because _she_ was so far beyond help that it wasn't even funny. And Viper didn't want to be anyone's charity case.

Deep down, she knew he didn't see her that way. She just needed to convince herself that breaking the guy's heart was the right thing to do.

Kinana frowned while walking over to the table from behind the bar, the guild doors slamming shut in the background. "That was a bit harsh, don't you think?" she whispered while looking down at the blonde.

"He needed to hear it, Cu," Viper sighed, shaking her head.

Kinana's frown only deepened. She knew that anyone else wouldn't hear the loneliness in the Poison Slayer's voice, but they'd been together long enough, and she remembered enough, to pick up the slight tremor that signalled one of the few times she cried.

Viper lifted her glass again, blinking at the pale, slender fingers that rested over the edge of her drink.

"Why do you push everyone away?" Kinana asked.

"You know why…"

With a sad smile, the purple-haired barmaid took a seat. "They're not all like that, Lucy. I think it'd be good for you… Letting someone in. Erik's a good guy."

Viper scoffed and finished her drink. "Since when do good guys want psychopaths?"

"You're a lot of things, but crazy isn't one of them."

She could hear the silent anger from the rest of the guild. They all knew she'd done something to upset Erik, and damnit she didn't want to hear any of that right then. It only made her feel so much worse about it all.

"No, but… I don't have a shot anyway."

"And why is that?"

The chair Erik vacated scraped along the floor before Gajeel plopped himself down in it. "Probably because Bunny Girl over here thinks he hasn't forgiven her for the shit she did before," he chuckled. "Plus, how much she tries to make him hate her. It's almost cute, Bunny…"

"Fuck you, Metalmouth. I told you to stop calling me that," she growled. "And stop picturing me in that fucking outfit. It's never happening!"

With his fist raised and a middle finger extended, Gajeel grinned at the blonde. "Stay outta my head then." The nickname had come about as a joke one morning when they were two of the only people in the guild. One of the few times he'd had an actual conversation with the blonde and found out that her favorite food was, oddly enough, rabbits. Considering her namesake ate rodents, including rabbits, he'd had quite the laugh over calling her 'Bunny Girl'. It was only escalated by him picturing her dressed up as a sexy bunny (very similar to the outfit Erza wore for him when they were alone) and being forced to dance while he performed at the guild - all in good fun, of course.

Kinana turned back to her. "You really think that?"

"I never said that…" Viper muttered. "Besides, I _know_ he forgave me. That's a non-issue."

"Well," Kinana sighed, standing up and getting ready to head back to the bar, "I think you're making a mistake. Erik's really into you."

"My body, maybe," she grumbled.

Gajeel waited until Kinana was out of earshot, then leaned forward to give Viper a long, hard stare. "If it ain't that, then what? Because you have no fuckin' clue how hard it is to keep Titania on a goddamn leash where her brother's concerned."

"What are you doing here?"

"Told her I'd talk to you. See what the fuck you were thinking." When Viper looked into his eyes, the last thing he'd been expecting was to see her looking so damn vulnerable for a change. It wasn't even a quick flash of emotion, but sitting plainly on her face. "Bunny…"

"I don't want to talk about this shit with you," she whispered.

"Well, seeing as I'm the only one here that'll give yer ass the time of day, get to spillin'."

She hadn't anticipated the Iron Slayer shifting so that she was very obviously - to her - hidden from the view of the guild. Or for the level of emotion shining in his suddenly worried crimson eyes. Here he was, giving her a chance to open up, and the privacy to appear however she wanted. She just didn't know what the hell to do about that.

' _Something's eatin' her up inside. I can smell it. She's feelin' guilty about what she just did, I bet. Makes sense, since Erik's too fuckin' nice for his own good most of the time, but damn… She's gonna cry. Fuck, don't cry… I don't deal with that shit well! NO!'_

How Gajeel had gone from looking worried to downright terrified was beyond her, but Viper couldn't find it in herself to stop the pathetic little laugh that rocketed from her throat. "I'm not gonna cry…"

"Holy shit, you know how to laugh?!"

"Fuck you!" Still, she was laughing about it all. The sheer terror had already disappeared, and now the intimidating Iron Slayer was staring at her in wonder. "I'm fully capable of laughing."

"When you're maiming shit, sure," he nodded. "Not like this…"

"Well, I am," she frowned.

"Maybe if people saw that a little more…"

"I don't usually have a reason to," she shrugged, leaning back in her chair and still smirking. The sudden image of how Erik had looked just before he'd left, the pain flashing across his face, forced her slightly raised spirits to fall flat. And once again, she was left feeling like an asshole.

"You need to be alone," Gajeel nodded, seeing the sudden shift in her demeanor. "I'll leave you to that, then."

As he stood and started walking back toward his own table, she looked up at his retreating figure. "Gajeel," she whispered. His head tilted slightly in her direction, and she knew he was listening. "Thanks…"

" _No problem. Just don't you dare start crying…"_ he silently told her. _"You wanna talk or some shit… Whatever… We're cool."_

She shook her head while looking at the empty glass in front of her. Maybe being in the guild wasn't the best place for her right then. She needed to think, that was for sure, and Fairy Tail was stifling, at best. With that thought in mind, she made her way to the bar and paid her tab, then added a little extra and whispered to Mira, "For Raspberry's drink. He stormed out without paying… That's my fault, so…"

Mira blinked in surprise, offering the Poison Slayer a small smile. "That's really sweet of you, Viper."

"Whatever…" The blonde turned and made her way out of the guild, wrapping her coat around herself just a little more tightly when she felt the biting chill in the air.

She stared at the ground, letting her feet carry her wherever they may while she thought back over the last few months in the guild. Every time she'd interacted with Erik in general. Back to when they'd first met.

He'd always been different. She'd seen it right away. He'd been an enemy of hers twice, but both times, he'd been trying to figure her out. It was like he was incapable of seeing only the bad in someone. He was too optimistic, and sure, she'd exploited that and tried to crush his spirit by going after Erza, but still… Even when she'd joined the guild, he didn't hate her. Hell, Erik had been the first one to really welcome her to the guild.

Erik was the only one outside of Kinana that had accepted her into the Fairy Tail family right away.

Her feet finally stopped, and Viper lifted her head to find herself in front of a navy door with a gold-plated 2B sitting under the peephole, her knuckles already rapping at the door.

' _Goddamnit, who's here? I don't wanna see anyone right now…'_

The door opened a moment later, and she watched the scowl on Erik's face melt into shock.

He blinked several times, trying to figure out whether he was imagining things, and still, she was there. Leaning against the wall opposite his apartment with her arms crossed over her chest. "V-Viper?"

"Were you seriously fucking crying?" she asked, seeing the familiar shine in his eyes.

His surprise died down and gave way to a deep scowl. His hand gripped the door, ready to slam the stupid thing, as he said, "Fuck you, alright? You don't need to rub shit in."

Viper pushed off the wall, her hands falling to her sides while she stalked over to him. He froze, and a small, teasing smirk pulled at her lips. "I wasn't trying to," she admitted. "Just asking a question."

"You already know that answer, then."

"I do," she nodded. "You gonna invite me in?"

Did he want to invite her in? Yes, and no. He had manners, and he knew it would be rude to keep her out in the hallway, but he didn't think he could handle the blonde being too close to him for too long. Still, as he looked into her nearly glowing indigo eye, he couldn't tell her no.

With a roll of his eyes, Erik opened the door further and stepped back to let her in. "Want something to drink?" he asked while closing the door behind them.

She shook her head, quickly taking in the apartment with sky blue walls, filled with pictures of himself and their guild mates. Shelves full of knick knacks. A writing desk on the far wall with a stack of papers on the corner. Dark grey couch and brushed steel furniture. A total bachelor pad, but it suited him.

"I just came to talk to you," she said slowly, following his lead toward the couch and taking a seat.

Erik nodded, leaning back as he watched her scowling at the ground. He already knew it would be pointless to try and get Viper to spill anything before she was ready, but as seconds turned into minutes, he started wondering if she even really knew why she was there.

"Can you tell me something?" Viper asked.

"Want me to actually answer, or are you just going to pull it out of my head?"

"I want you to tell me the fucking truth," she whispered, frowning.

He let out a heavy, weary sigh. "What is it?"

"Why?"

"Why, what?" he asked, frowning as she looked up at him. In the time since she'd joined the guild, he'd never seen her look like this. Almost as though she was uncomfortable.

"Why me? After everything I've done to you, why the hell would you be stupid enough to want… _that…_ "

"Maybe I'm crazy," he muttered. Really, the fact that Viper was asking him about his interest in her was surprising as hell. He'd never thought, especially after what had happened at the guild, that she would want to know anything about it.

And, of course, he'd tried to sort out just what it was about the blonde Slayer that had him so enamored, but he just couldn't figure it out. There wasn't just one thing that stood out as a determining factor in why he wanted to be with her. With all her faults, and he knew there were plenty, he couldn't help but see the good in her that she always tried to hide.

She did a damn good job of hiding it, but he was probably the only one looking closely enough to see it. "There's just something about you, I guess…"

Viper nodded, keeping her gaze locked with his. "Okay. I'll see you around."

"Wait," Erik blinked. "That's it?"

Viper paused in getting up, staring at him blankly for several painfully long moments. "Was there supposed to be more?"

"I-I don't know. I mean, you came here, acting like you wanted a serious talk, and that… That was hardly anything." Exasperation and confusion really didn't even nick the tip of the iceberg. _'Honestly, I was ready for her to try ripping my throat out.'_

"Nope, that was it." Viper finally looked away, standing and taking a step toward the door. When she felt his fingers gently wrapping around hers, she froze.

Erik slowly stood, his eyes intense and searching as she looked at him over her shoulder. "Tell me something?"

She looked down to where his caramel skin clashed with her pale flesh, nearly shivering as his thumb brushed over her guild mark. "What?"

"What happened to make you like this?" he whispered. "When you talked to me… When I was in the clock… Why did you look so…"

"Dead inside?" she whispered back, recalling the words he'd thought that day with terrifying clarity. Viper felt, more than saw, him nod.

"I get it if you don't wanna tell me," Erik sighed. "I just-"

"I lost Cubellios," she whispered. "We broke out, and I spent years searching for her… I gave up on ever finding her…"

His brow furrowed in thought. "And that's why you sacrificed your eye?"

"I was weak," Viper spat, pulling her hand from his. "I had to be stronger to find her. And it still wasn't enough." Why she was telling him, she didn't know. It was something about the warmth he radiated, she was sure.

She gasped as his calloused fingers hooked under her chin, gently lifting her head so he could look into her eye again.

"I never thought you were weak," he smiled.

" _You_ beat my ass back then," she scoffed, rolling her eye. "I was weak."

"You still stood back up," he countered. "You kept fighting."

Viper's eye widened when she felt his thumb lightly brushing over the bottom of her scar, back and forth across her cheek. The tenderness in his gaze threw her for a loop. _No one_ looked at her like that. She didn't deserve that level of affection being directed at her.

The problem was, she'd noticed how his tongue barely darted over his full, parted lips. She heard just what he was going to do, and that he was taking his time _because_ he knew she could hear him. He wanted to give her an out, a chance to punch him right in the fucking testicles and poison him for even thinking of it. _'Erik, what are you doing?'_

She couldn't move though. Even as his head dipped and he took a small step closer to her. She could feel his breath on her lips as he paused. The warmth of his body in all the places he wasn't even actually touching her. _'Dumbass! Push him away!'_

"You were so beautiful that day," he whispered, looking deeply into her widened eye, a breath away from her as he pictured the day they'd first met. Her red corset, black leather pants, combat boots, her hair braided in pigtails. Her eyes that were just like his. Her full lips and pointed teeth.

"I saw you," he breathed, his hand slowly moving to sift his fingers through her hair at the nape of her neck. "You weren't a monster when you were with her…"

 _She wrapped an arm around the large snake's head, her injured arm hanging, useless, at her side. Cubellios let out a soft hiss, its tongue tickling the blonde's dirty cheek. Viper sniffled, a watery laugh escaping her, then tenderly kissed her friend's snout._

Viper's lips trembled at the memory playing in his head. _'What the hell is he doing? Wh-What…'_

"You were…"

 _*.*_

 _Viper sat at the bar with her chin in her hand, looking for all the world as though nothing could touch her. Kinana paused in front of her, giving the blonde a bright smile while settling a bottle of bleach on the bar. Viper's eye lit up, widening only slightly, and she smirked at the purple-haired barmaid._

 _*.*_

"No," he chuckled, "You still are…"

Viper felt her entire soul stilling as more and more of his memories played out for her to hear. Memories she'd never known he had, simply because she had been so desperate to try and keep herself out of his head.

 _*.*_

 _Erik walked along a thin trail in the woods, taking in the calm midday atmosphere. He paused as he heard laughter off to his right, then slowly crept through the trees to find Viper and Kinana sitting on a blanket under a tree across the bright clearing. He couldn't see their faces with how far away they were, but he found himself grinning when Viper's head shot forward and what was very obviously her drink shot out of her nose._

" _Cu, you ass!" Viper coughed, still somehow laughing. "Bleach burns when it comes out of your nose!"_

 _Kinana laughed loudly. "Wait 'til you see my impression of Gajeel!"_

" _Oh fuck… No!"_

 _Erik bit his lips when the blonde collapsed onto her side, hysterical, bright peals of laughter spilling from her._

" _Shoo-be-doo-ba!"_

" _I'm g-gonna… die… Oh god… C-Cu, stop!"_

 _*.*_

"... So beautiful."

She gasped as he finally closed the last bit of distance between them. The scent of raspberries and almond filled her lungs, his scent, one she'd always tried to ignore because of how much it called to her. _'Stop this. Stop him, you idiot… You can't do this to him…'_ She wanted more than anything to sink further into him as his other hand came up to gently rest on her waist. To let him devour her, body, mind, and soul.

' _Fuck, her lips are just like I'd imagined… So perfect…'_

She drew back in surprise, her cheeks flaming brilliantly as her trembling fingers pressed to cool her lips.

The pink dusting her cheeks was a sight to behold, and Erik found himself grinning while looking down into her widened violet eye.

Viper well and truly couldn't find her breath as she looked at him. Especially not when she saw the small dimples in his cheeks from how widely he was smiling. _'Did someone turn on the heater?'_ She was sure much longer would have her melting into a puddle right then and there.

"Did I break you?" Erik teased. Really, the fact that she hadn't castrated him by that point was being considered a total fucking win for him. Even if she did it now, at least he would have gotten one kiss out of her. He'd die a happy man for that.

"I-I…" Viper slowly shook her head, blinking in confusion at the happiness she found in his gaze, how his soul fluttered and sighed like a lovestruck schoolgirl.

"You act like you've never been kissed," he chuckled.

The blush that had slowly been diminishing roared back to life, spreading to the tips of her pointed ears. With a step back, forcing her body to keep some distance from his, Viper looked to the side in shame. "Shut the fuck up…"

And there went all the humor in him. It packed its bags and flew out the window as soon as the words were out of her mouth. "Wait… Seriously?"

"I'm… toxic," she cringed. "Brain always said…" With a heavy sigh and a shake of her head, Viper turned toward the door, her head downcast and her shoulders hunched. The last thing she'd wanted Erik, of all people, to know was that she was like this. _'That's why you stayed away, you fucking moron…'_ He should have figured it out, to be honest, but maybe the puzzle pieces hadn't connected for him just yet. "I should just… go…"

"Viper, wait-"

She shook off his hand as he tried to reach for her. "No. Y-You should get checked out, okay? I might've poisoned you." His fingers brushed over her knuckles, and she gasped when the next step had her whirling around with both of his hands firmly on her shoulders, then his lips moving over hers yet again.

' _Oh god. He tastes so fucking good… I just - No! Stop this! You're not good enough for shit like this!'_ She ripped herself away from him, pushing at his chest and taking a step back.

"I don't care about that."

"Are you a fucking idiot?" she growled, glaring with everything she had while her eye burned with angry tears. It just wasn't fair that he would tease her with something like this. Something she knew that she couldn't have, no matter how much she wanted it. "You could die!"

"I highly doubt you have so little control over your magic that you'd poison me just from kissing."

"Yeah, well… They're right, what they say about me in the guild…" She shook her head while his brow lifted in silent question. "Brain knew about the lacrima he put in me. He told me-"

"The same guy that shot you in the back because I beat you?" he asked softly, taking a tentative step closer when her jaw snapped shut. "You're really gonna trust anything he said?"

"H-He… Well, that… B-Brain was..."

"He lied to you," he whispered, his hands coming up to gently cup her cheeks. "He lied about the lacrima, and he lied about your parents. All he ever fucking did was lie to you. He used you, made you what _he_ wanted, and then threw your ass to the curb."

"M-My parents have nothing to do with this…"

"No, but I bet the scars you've got from the Tower do." Her whole body went rigid and the tears he'd been shocked to find in her eye finally spilled over in a thin trail down her cheek. With a soft sigh, and without thinking about what he was doing, Erik leaned forward and tenderly pressed his lips to the scar from her forehead to her cheek.

"Wh-What…"

"I don't know if you're like me," he whispered as her hands fisted in his shirt. She paused though, and he could feel her shivering in indecision on whether to push him away or pull him closer. "If you've got marks on you from the whips and the beatings. Erza doesn't, so you might have been lucky, too... But, we were all left with shit that'll never go away."

' _I hate it when I have flashbacks… It's why I use that whip, though. To overcome it… I have to…'_

"A-And nightmares," she whimpered. Her grip on his shirt loosened as he swiped her cheek free of tears. _'He knows about them. My scars… How does he know? I'm so careful!'_

"Viper, if you don't want to kiss me because you're not attracted to me, then fine. I can live with that. But, if it's because you're scared of hurting me-"

"I'm n-not scared of anything," she lied. Even he could see through it that time.

"Then kiss me," he whispered tenderly. "Just once. Trust your magic, and trust _me_."

The problem for the Poison Slayer was that every time she'd trusted someone, it had bitten her in the ass. She had trusted Brain, and he'd tried to kill her. Trusted Midnight to make the Infinity Clock work, and he'd failed. She had trusted her own goddamn gut in coming to Fairy Tail to find Kinana, and had been given nothing but the cold shoulder for her own shortcomings.

' _Please trust me not to hurt you,'_ his soul whispered. _'Give me a chance. Just one chance to prove that I care. Beautiful… Radiant… God, I love her threats sometimes… So smart… Takes my breath away just being in the same room… I won't mess this up if she'll have me. I'm tired of being alone. I just want to take her loneliness away… I bet her smile would kill me. Fuck, I'd die grinning…'_

No one had ever thought about her the way Erik did. Sure, men had been interested in her, but never like this. His soul was singing an opera just from being this close to her, while humming a lullaby from the contentment in learning just a little more about her. He was complex, intriguing, but the Celestial mage cared more about taking away _her_ loneliness than his own.

' _I trust her magic. I feel fine. More than fine. Walking on a fucking cloud in a diaper, kind of fine…'_

Nervously nibbling her lip, Viper whispered, "Just… once?"

Erik smirked down at her, then. "More than that, if you'd like." Her grip on his shirt tightened again as he waited for her to decide, and he well and truly smiled when he felt the slight tug on the fabric, her giving him permission without a single word. Slowly, he closed the distance between them once more, watching her eye slide closed mere moments before his followed suit, his body rippling excitedly when her lips finally puckered against his.

He instinctively moved closer, pulling her body flush against him. Viper's cheeks flushed as his fingers trailed down her arms then laced with hers. He nipped gently at her lower lip, pulling a startled gasp from the blonde as her arms looped around his neck and his hands smoothed over her waist.

A quiet moan rumbled in his chest when she nipped at him in response, her pointed canines scraping lightly over his flesh. Hands gliding over her back, feeling the soft fabric of her jacket, his tongue traced the seam of her lips, once, twice, then teased them into parting.

Raspberries and almond burst across her taste buds as the lithe muscle coaxed hers into a writhing dance. Her body seemed to have a mind of its own while she got lost in the sounds and colors splashing through his soul.

 _Joy..._

 _Contentment..._

Her fingers sunk into his deep maroon locks and a gentle purr, so foreign to her ears, yet feeling so right that she couldn't question it, rumbled within her as she tried to pull him closer.

Bodies molded together, hands slowly questing in gentle exploration, Viper found her breath stolen as their 'single' kiss became two. Then three. Each one more intense and mind-numbing than the last.

… _Love._

Erik had to keep telling himself that they wouldn't do anything more than kiss, regardless of what his body was screaming for. And regardless of the sounds she was making that were already fraying his control. They would take it slowly, because the last thing he wanted was for the blonde in his arms to think he only wanted her for her body.

Oh, he would be more than happy to lose himself in the Eden that he just knew was nestled between her thighs, but that could wait. He wanted to be able to touch her soul first. To know who she really was.

" _Mm_ … Erik," she moaned between kisses as his hands unconsciously slid down to cup her ass after pushing beneath her jacket. She could feel his arousal pressing against his pants, pinned between them. Even better, though, was that she could smell it in the air. So dark and sensual, just like his skin that she couldn't help but picture laid out on a bed beneath her.

He wanted Viper to see that life wasn't as lonely or miserable as what she'd already been through. She didn't have to keep holding onto the Tower, or her time with the Oracion Seis. If she let it go, put her trust in him, he could make her see how bright the world really was.

' _Fuck, I want her so badly… But… Shit… I-I'll wait however long she wants. Anything… God, I'm fucking whipped already… O-Oh fuck, don't move your hips like… TH-THAT! She's gonna be the death of me…'_

Their lips slowed, and Erik reluctantly pulled back to rest his forehead against hers while he silently panted. A slow smile spread across his face when her eye opened just enough to look up at him.

"Erik," she whispered in wonder, her cheeks bright red.

"Whatever happened to Raspberry?" he chuckled.

A timid smile barely touched her lips, and the blonde leaned up to lightly nibble on his lip. Her eye slid closed when the dark, musky scent of his arousal intensified. "Didn't you hear me?" she whispered, tenderly suckling the barely swollen bit of flesh. "You'll always be Raspberry to me."

"Maybe I'll just dye my hair then," he chuckled.

She drew back, teasing him with a slightly wider smile. "I'll hold you down and dye it back."

"You wouldn't," he scoffed.

"Oh, I would. And besides…" The way Erik's breath stalled as she leaned in to whisper in his ear was so damn worth it. "You'll still taste like raspberries."

When she drew back, the fact that she was still glowing with a gentle blush nearly sucker punched him right in the gut. He'd never thought he would be able to see Viper like this, and yet… here she was, just proving him wrong in the best way possible.

"So," she said, glancing nervously off to the side. "Now what do we do?"

"Let me take you on a date?"

Her eye went wide as she looked back up at him. "A… A d-date?"

"Yep. A date," he grinned. Erik belatedly realized that he was still holding her body tightly against his, and just before he could move his hands away from what was, hands down, the most perfectly sculpted ass in existence, he found Viper tightening her grip around his shoulders to keep them just the way they were. "I wanted to ask you on a date earlier, y'know."

"I know, but… I mean…"

' _Dinner. Maybe I can take her to the Botanical Gardens, first. She could probably tell me all about the different poisonous plants there. And if she doesn't know about them, then we'll learn together.'_

Viper's lips turned up in a happy, almost giddy, smile. She'd really thought, regardless of how mind-blowing it was to have his lips and hands on her, that Erik would have just moved on from the silly notion of wanted to take her out anywhere. But he still wanted it. He still wanted her. "A date it is, then…" she whispered.

' _Oh god, she's smiling. I've gotta be dead…'_ Erik finally slid his hands on a meandering path up to her pinched waist, glancing quickly at the clock. They still had plenty of time before the Gardens were closed for the day, but he wanted to get as much time with Viper as he possibly could. "Then let's go."

"N-Now?"

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Right now. No need to change or anything else. You look perfect."

Viper stood perfectly still as he pulled away, her hands gliding down his chest until they fell at her sides. He leaned over just a little and grabbed his keys and whip that had been tossed on the coffee table, and she stiffened when his arm wound around her waist while she was led out of the door, pausing only for him to shrug into his own jacket on the way.

Once they were outside of the apartment building, she looked up at the cloudy sky that signalled a coming snowstorm. "Will you… maybe... teach me about the stars?"

Erik's eyes lit up and he pulled her just a little closer when he felt her starting to shiver. "Anything you want," he whispered.

* * *

A quivering moan escaped Viper as his sweaty body collapsed on top of hers, her hands tightly clutching his scarred back, harsh breaths matching his own. Erik's hips rocked with each pulse of his shaft nestled between her legs, quiet, sated groans rumbling against her sweat-slicked neck.

His scent was everywhere, overloading her sinuses and making her already overly sensitive body roar to life. She could still feel her sex clutching desperately to him in waves, begging the Celestial mage to rip off the condom she was more than glad he'd had the foresight to keep in his nightstand.

The date had been everything she'd never expected to have. The Gardens had been gorgeous, and Erik had bought her a few packets of seeds to plant her own nightshade at her apartment. Dinner was absolutely amazing, and the look on the waiter's face when she'd ordered a glass of all-purpose cleaner was priceless. And Erik… Really, Viper couldn't understand how she'd never realized just how funny he was. Or how twisted his humor was. She'd found out over the course of the night, then got to see his eyes lighting up in a way she'd never expected while they sat in the park and he told her about the constellations that fueled his magic.

She pitied his door though. He'd invited her back over to his place for some hot cocoa, because it was cold as hell outside and they needed to warm up a bit, and by the time they'd reached the landing, only five steps away from the navy door leading to apartment 2B, their lips were harshly biting at one another.

She couldn't remember who had started the kiss, though.

It was the longest five steps of her life just trying to get into the privacy of his apartment, and when he couldn't find the right key, Viper had been on the verge of breaking the stupid thing. Even though she had her back pressed against it.

Luckily his spirit, Virgo, had decided to summon herself and unlock it from the inside.

Viper hardly paid the maid spirit any mind as he'd lifted her to his hips and stormed to his bedroom. She knew he hadn't intended to let it go any farther than kissing, even as she was taken to his bed, but the fact that she'd gotten his control to snap - and hearing just how beautiful it was while he fought to hold himself back, only to cave and give in to his more primal desires - had led to that moment.

Erik let out a low hum while pressing open-mouthed kisses over the swell of her breasts and up to her ear. His lips curved upwards as she moaned again once his breath feathered over the pointed tip.

His hands slid under her, affectionately rippling over the multitude of scars he'd found she had from the Tower. There was no way he could be disgusted by them. It just proved what he already knew to be true about the woman in his arms.

She was a fighter. A beautifully, deadly fighter.

How he'd managed to find himself with Viper in his bed was beyond his mental capacity to understand right then. He knew she wanted to be there, that much he was sure of. If the way she was slowly turning his head and kissing him with everything she was worth, or how her sinfully smooth legs slithered over his, was any indication, the blonde Poison Slayer was more than a little fine with being there.

And god, had she been even more of a treasure to behold once her clothes were off. He'd found out quite a bit about the usually closed off Slayer while they'd been in the Gardens, then during dinner, and even while they'd sat in the park and he'd tried pointing out constellations through the clouds. And, as it turned out, he'd also learned just how breathtaking she was while blushing so intensely it reached down to her rose-colored nipples.

Uncomfortable hadn't even begun to describe her once he saw her scars, but he'd done everything he could think of to ease her fears.

He'd asked her if she was sure enough times that she had almost punched him. But, it was her first time. He wanted to be sure that it was something _she_ wanted. Especially since she'd only been kissed for the first time a few hours before.

Luckily, Viper wanted him to be her first.

Watching her violet eye darken with lust, widening as he'd slowly brought his fingers to her sex, how it rolled back as her pleasure mounted… Erik had never seen something so breathtaking.

He hadn't been able to take his eyes off of her, or pulls his lips far from hers, once he replaced his fingers, drenched in her arousal, with his hips between her too-tempting thighs. Erik hadn't wanted to miss a single thing Viper had to offer. How her fingers had trembled while touching his own scarred flesh, how tenderly she'd run her hands over him when she realized just how similar they were. The breathy moans, soft growls, aroused purrs. The way her pointed canines had drawn blood while she bit her lip. Her surprise when he had leaned down to swipe his tongue across the little punctures.

That had surprised both of them, actually. And Erik had found out that Viper's blood sent fire flooding his veins, and made his body hyper-aware of everything. Things were a little hazy after that, but he was sure his neighbors hated him now, mainly because the only thing he really could recall was Viper screaming his name. Repeatedly.

His lips pulled from hers hesitantly, and a lazy grin settled over them. "Damn," he panted. "You're… Wow..."

"No shit," Viper giggled, nipping gently at his kiss-swollen lips. "You've got some stamina."

"And you are too damn tempting," he rasped, sinking further into her sweet embrace and coaxing her tongue into another slow dance.

Erik moaned into the kiss as he withdrew his softened member from her, and he quickly tied the rubber off and leaned over to toss it into the trashcan, only to laugh as she pulled him back to her lips. Apparently, she was just as affectionate as he could be, and he definitely didn't have a problem with that.

"Making up for… _Mmm_ … lost time…" she whispered between kisses.

"Lost time?"

She blushed when he drew back to look down at her curiously. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to kiss you."

Erik chuckled quietly. "Tell me."

Viper looked away, her cheeks flaming brilliantly when he turned her to face him again. "Since we met…"

His eyes widened, then he grinned. "You're not the only one."

"I know," she laughed. "I heard you back then, too. I'm wishing I'd done it sooner."

It was only when she pulled him down into another kiss that quickly intensified, that a devious grin split his lips. _"Well, I might need some time to recuperate,"_ he told her silently. _"But you…"_

Viper let out a sultry laugh as she watched Erik's head descend the length of her body, her breath catching when he paused to shower the scar between her breasts, where the lacrima had been implanted, with affection.

' _She's perfect… I'm so lucky…'_

Erik smiled up at the blonde as her fingers sifted through his hair, her thumbs tenderly brushing over his cheeks.

"Tell me something?" she whispered breathily.

"Anything."

Viper nibbled her lip nervously, her hips shifting slightly as his tongue dipped into her navel. "Is this… normal?"

"Me going down on you?" Erik chuckled. "It will be, yeah."

She shook her head and rolled her eye. "No, ass," she laughed. His head dipped between her legs, and Viper whimpered when she felt his warm breath across her sex. His hands brushed back and forth over her thighs as he pulled her legs over his shoulders, and her head lifted to peer down at him when she felt his lips pressing gentle, open-mouthed kisses to her sensitive flesh.

"You had a question?" he whispered. His tongue dragged up her slit when she got ready to speak, and the way she shuddered and let out a small squeak of surprise had his smile widening.

"Y-You make me," she whimpered, "Feel like my heart's melting… A-And exploding… A-And… _Nngh_ …"

His eyes lifted slowly as his mouth closed over her, gently prodding her entrance with his tongue.

"And… I wanna hate you… But… _Oh god…_ I c-can't…"

' _That's how she makes me feel all the time…'_

"What is it?" Viper gasped as two fingers slipped into her while he started teasing her clit with his lips and tongue.

' _Should I tell her? I know I feel it, but I don't want to scare her off. Not now… Not ever.'_

"T-Tell me?"

"Later," he groaned softly. _'It's too soon to tell her I love her. Way too soon… Fuck! I bet she heard me… Shit… Um…'_

"Don't stop," Viper moaned. "Talk l-later… Fuck…"

" _Gihi… Little Red, I think you should come home with me. He's got company."_

"God, you taste delicious, Viper," Erik groaned against her sex, his fingers moving faster as her hips rolled.

" _What? Gajeel, I wanted to check on Erik. I know she upset him. He's been alone long enough."_

"C-Call me Lucy," she rasped. She nearly whined when he froze and looked up at her in shock. The last thing she wanted was for him to stop the glorious magic he was working between her legs. When he finally smiled at her, with his dimples making an appearance for the umpteenth time that night, the blonde swore she saw stars and sakura petals in the air behind him.

"My pleasure," he purred. "Lucy…"

Her eye widened when he dove down and started moving more quickly. His tongue, teeth, lips, and fingers all pushing her to the brink of insanity.

" _I smell a snake in his bed."_

" _Oh…"_

"O-Oh, Erik!" she cried out. "E-Erik… Right there!"

" _OH! Viper is… They're… Oh wow… Well, then… Yes, I would love to go home with you."_

Lucy was breathless as her indigo eye slid closed, and she could do nothing more than let herself get lost in pleasure at the hands of Fairy Tail's Celestial mage. _'Love… I… I think he's onto something…'_

She'd never felt anything like what the maroon-haired mage was able to do to her. Not just her body, but her very soul. He had rocked her to the core, burrowed beneath years of armor and pain and torment, and found the innocent girl she had once been.

"O-Oh god… Erik!"

Her eye opened again as he moved to hover over her as soon as her back was resting on the bed again. She could see it in his eyes once the condom was rolled over him and he slowly pushed back into her. He really loved her.

He loved her, she knew that, and instead of shying away from it… She was going to accept it.

Shuddering moans filled the air, passionate cries breaking up the sounds of their heavy breathing as the night wore on. Neither mage cared that Erik had left his bedroom window open and the corset Viper had been wearing was hanging halfway out of it, or that the bed was soaked with sweat by the time they collapsed into an exhausted pile of limbs hours later.

"Fuck," Erik panted against her shoulder, his chest against her back. "Lucy… Fuck, I love you…" By then, he was too far gone to realize what he was saying.

She smiled, reaching behind her to sift her fingers through his sweat-matted hair and pull him just a little closer. "I love you too, Erik."

That definitely drew his attention. When he moved to look her in the eye, he found one emotion he'd never imagined. She wasn't lying, not that he'd thought she would. But Lucy, the Poison Dragon Slayer that had tried to kill him twice, who had fought so hard to keep herself locked away from the rest of the guild because she didn't think she was capable of caring for anyone… Who thought she had done too much damage to others to deserve love… That she was too broken to love anyone… She loved him.

"Always, Kili," she laughed breathlessly.

"Very funny, Tauriel," Erik chuckled. He withdrew and threw the tied off condom away, grinning when she rolled over to face him. "Sexy little elf."

"Creepy fucking dwarf."

"Touché. But you love my creepy dwarf body."

"Well… Yeah, I guess you got me there…" She sighed as he tucked her into his chest, listening to his heart return to its normal tempo and how his soul was humming. She could feel it wrapping around her, just as his arms did, enveloping her in warmth that she had never thought she could experience.

 _ **.The End.**_


	8. Oracion Sass

**A/N: Hey everyone, and welcome to Day 7! Now, any of you that are following me on Facebook know that I had set a challenge for myself to make this chapter under the word-count for** _ **LittlePrincessNana**_ **'s own entry. When she eventually decided not to write for the prompt, for multiple reasons, I had to** **do what I normally do… Let the shit get wild and see what happens.**

 **And now, of course, the silly little minx has written for it.**

 **So, without further ado, I give you…**

 **Day 7: Energy**

* * *

 _ **Oracion Sass**_

* * *

Lucy prided herself on a few things: her relationships with her friends, her spirits, her loyalty. Okay, so she prided herself on a number of them. One of the most important was that she forgive people their past transgressions against her. Everyone knew it. Hell, the weird old guy at the train station that just fucking _stared_ at her the entire time she was there before boarding for a mission, knew it. He'd told her as much.

But, part of that forgiveness meant creating a bond of some sort with the people she'd forgiven. Several times, that bond had come in the form of her lying on her back with her legs in the air, screaming someone's name. Laxus, Gajeel, Bickslow, Freed… That one weird night with Rustyrose. Evergreen was not exempt from that list. Really, Lucy had found the Fairy mage to be quite the attentive lover. After a single night with them, there was nothing more where romance was concerned. They simply stayed friends. She didn't always sleep with the people she forgave, though. Minerva, for example, was just an acquaintance - one that Lucy found she didn't have a whole lot in common with.

And so, when she had come to the realization that she had yet to really get to know any of the members of Crime Sorciere, specifically those that had once been in the Oracion Seis, Lucy had marched her ass right over to their table and bought everyone a round of drinks with no ulterior motive than learning more about them, and showing that she didn't hold their past against them.

She knew Jellal, sort of. And had occasionally had a conversation or two with Meredy, since the pinkette was, for a short period of time, nearly always attached to Natsu's crotch. Lucy still had nightmares about walking in and finding Natsu defiling her bed with the Maguilty mage. Thankfully, they were only nightmares, and had never actually happened.

But Angel, Midnight, Hoteye, Racer, and Cobra... She didn't know anything about who they really were, and Lucy was determined to change that.

After six rounds of drinks, with each person picking up the tab of their own after hers had been finished, Lucy was getting to know them extremely well.

There hadn't been a party when she'd gotten to the guild, but somewhere between finding out that Meredy and Macbeth (as he was now going by) were regularly fucking and terrorizing their guildmates with impromptu cuddles, and that Cobra - the only one that refused to go by his birth name - could actually get drunk only if he ingested pure acetone polish remover… A party had begun.

She was sure it was Cobra's fault, but she couldn't pin it on him. He just… had that look in his eye, like he had been manipulating everyone and things were all going according to his dastardly plan. But, Lucy was also sure that whatever his plan may have been, it wasn't all that dastardly. He wasn't cackling maniacally, and really… She was positive that evil plots required the cackling.

"So, this is a Fairy Tail party," Sorano hummed, her chin resting on her hand and a light flush across her cheeks from the alcohol Meredy had been all but forcing down her throat.

Ah, now Lucy remembered why it had started. She had effectively flipped shit when Cobra brought up the fact that they had, in fact, never been at Fairy Tail during one of their famed parties.

And Sorano had added that the Seis had never been to a party in general.

Those two comments had resulted in the blonde hopping up on the table and shouting to Mira that they needed a party to properly welcome their guests. The look on the barmaid's face, one that Lucy had vaguely registered as surprise, was so damn worth it. In a matter of minutes, there was music and dancing and far too much alcohol going around.

"Loud as hell," Cobra muttered into his glass of acetone. "Fuck, this is good stuff."

The drinking games were already under way. A dance floor and stage had appeared out of what Lucy was sure was thin air. Karaoke came and went, but she refused to leave her table with their visitors. Even when she saw everyone dancing. God, she loved dancing now that she didn't have to do a single step-ball-change or waltz. It was so damn freeing.

"I wish I knew how to dance like that," Sorano sighed.

Lucy's head snapped over to the Angel mage, her eyes widening in shock. "Seriously? It's easy."

She smirked and downed the rest of her drink. "That," Sorano said, gesturing to Cana as she ground her ass into Bickslow's crotch, "Does not look easy."

"Pfft. It is," Lucy laughed. "Wanna learn?"

She didn't notice the men at the table suddenly turning to stare at her. And she didn't hear their collective gulping. All Lucy was focused on was the sudden shock and slight horror on Sorano's face.

"Yes!" Meredy giggled. "Sora needs to shake her ass!"

"Wh-What? No!"

Lucy laughed and stumbled from her seat next to Cobra, unconsciously steadying herself with a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon, sugartits," she teased while ripping Sorano from her seat. "You need the full experience!"

"Which, based on her thoughts, might end up with you naked," Cobra smirked. The vicious glare Sorano directed at him was highly diminished by the bright tint to her cheeks. He paused and let his eye rake over Lucy while she and Meredy grappled with Macbeth to get him out of his seat. "Blondie sure as hell will be."

"Shut up, Cobra," Jellal sighed.

The Poison Dragon Slayer shrugged and downed the rest of his glass, grinning when Kinana was immediately setting another one in its place. And, of course, he found himself simply laughing when he saw Lucy putting her hands on Sorano's hips and fluffing up the plethora of feathers on her dress. He already knew that she was straight as an arrow, and had developed quite the infatuation with Gray, but there was no way in hell he would let this one go.

"This won't do at all," Lucy groaned. "I can't see your ass!"

Cobra snorted at the way Sorano sputtered. "Not everyone's flaunting it, Blondie." When she glared at him over her shoulder, he raised his glass and leaned back in his chair. "I'm _not_ complainin'… Mmm, no…"

Oh, he definitely wasn't complaining at the way the blonde was dressed. He never would. And really, if no one else laid claim to her that night, he just might end up trying himself. Then again, maybe not.

"Oh my god," Meredy giggled. "Cobra's really drunk."

"This is terrifying," Macbeth nodded.

Lucy, without thinking, dropped to her knees and crawled under Sorano's skirt to look at her underwear.

"What the hell?!" Sorano screeched, trying in vain to pull her skirt between her legs.

Lucy's head popped back up and she grinned. "Cute panties. I've got it." Without standing, and only removing one hand from the Angel mage's ass - while appreciating her thong a little too much - Lucy called out to Mira.

"Yes, Lu - Why are you in Angel's dress?"

"P-Please stop touching my butt…"

Cobra snorted and shook his head. "Wardrobe change!" he shouted giddily. This was going to be more than interesting, he was sure. Now, if only he could figure out a way to make the room stop spinning...

* * *

Lucy's lips split in a wide, drunken smile as she looked over Sorano in a pair of skintight black booty shorts and a feathered halter top. Really, there was just no getting the woman away from them, so they'd had to compromise.

Why Mira had an outfit like this in the first place at the guild was beyond the blonde's ability to reason right then, and as she downed another glass of whiskey right after it was set on the table, she couldn't even feel the burn of the alcohol any longer.

"We'll start simple," Lucy slurred. She spread her legs and put her hands just above her knees, arching her back slightly. "Copy me."

Cobra, who had just happened to have not moved aside from turning to watch what was about to unfold, was the lucky winner that had Lucy's mini-skirt covered (or mostly uncovered, with the way she was standing) ass right in front of him. Just so he wouldn't be caught staring, and not fully realizing how his jaw had dropped open slightly at the sight of lime green lace disappearing between her cheeks, he looked over to see Sorano attempting to get into the same position. Along with Meredy and Macbeth copying the blonde.

That shit was just weird.

"You do a… like… curling thing," Lucy laughed, bending slightly and tucking her hips under. "Then just, uh… do this."

Sorano blinked as she watched Lucy. "Huh?"

"I think she's telling you to pop your ass up like the fucking Koolaid Man jumped on your back," Cobra supplied.

Lucy laughed loudly, tossing her hair over one shoulder to look at the Poison Slayer. "Yes! Pop your booty, make it jiggle… Jiggling is key. This is a staple in your clubbing repertoire."

"J-Jiggle?" Sorano frowned and looked back at her own behind while trying to mimic Lucy, then squawked when she stumbled and crashed to the floor.

Lucy giggled and helped her stand, then moved in behind Sorano and pressed their bodies together. "Let's start simpler," she whispered. Her hands strayed to the other woman's hips, and she started to sway them from one side to the other.

Cobra shook his head to clear it a little, turning back to the table for another glass of acetone. Really, why he hadn't considered the shit being just enough to really get his ass drunk, he wasn't sure. Yes, it was a poison, but some sort of chemical reaction had happened, and now… "I'm so drunk…"

Jellal blinked and turned toward Cobra when he heard the familiar, gritty voice lilting and ending on a small giggle. "Cobra, did you just…"

"Oh my god, it's fucking hot…"

"You wear, like, ten layers of clothes," Sawyer supplied. "Take some off. You'll feel better."

Cobra frowned down at himself, then groaned and pulled off his jacket. Then one of his shirts. Then his thermal shirt. Finally down to only a black tank top and his pants, he sighed in relief while dropping the other clothes to the bench beside him.

He looked back over to where Lucy and the others were at, and found a smirk winding its way onto his lips when he saw that the blonde was trying to get Sorano to dance a little more provocatively than before. Hands on the knees. Shaking their asses almost in time to the music.

"God, can't you just get into it?" Cobra shouted over the music.

"I'm trying!" Sorano shouted.

"Not hard enough," he shot back. He watched as both women turned in slow motion to look at him and gave them a dark grin. "It's just some ass shaking. Wiggle it. Fuckin' chitty chitty bang bang. Just _do_ it, already."

"Cobra," Jellal snickered. "That doesn't even make sense."

"Go fuck yourself," he replied with a wave of his hand. "Sora looks like a pitbull is trying to fuck her in the ass, and she can't decide if she wants to let it or not."

"Wow," Lucy laughed. "That… I didn't need that mental picture."

"Highly accurate," he sighed, taking another sip of his drink.

"Well, if you're such an expert, then why don't _you_ do it?" Sorano sneered.

Lucy's eyes lit up and she scampered over to the suddenly stunned Slayer, dragging him by the hand from his seat. "Yes! Your turn, Mister Know-It-All!"

"What? No!"

"Yes!"

He turned to glare at his guildmates when all of their voices chorused their agreement with Lucy's insistence that he shake his ass.

"Snaky butt!" she crooned. "C'mon! Show 'em all what you can do!"

Cobra had never been one for stumbling, but he just couldn't get his feet to work all that well with the blonde darting one way then another through the writhing bodies in the middle of the guild. When they finally stopped, he was sure she would turn toward him, and she did, but the last thing he'd expected was for her to start pushing him up a set of steps. "What the fuck? On the stage…"

"Yep," she laughed, drunkenly following him. Really, she'd expected him to fight a little more, but no matter what he said, Cobra was obviously a willing participant in all of this. He could stop her at any moment, if he wanted to. "No worries, you won't be alone."

He turned toward the blonde, taking a step back when she bumped into him. The sight of her flushed cheeks and lazy smile while she looked up at him had a whole bucket of fucking confidence filling him from head to toe. He'd seen Lucy dancing while she was drunk off her ass, and damnit could the blonde move. If she could pull it off, then so could he.

Lucy bit her lip while placing her hands on his arms, her fingers skittering over the bared, tanned flesh and flexing to feel muscles she'd never known he had. "Don't be a scaredy snake," she whispered.

"No way in hell," he chuckled, taking a step back and licking his lips while taking in her barely there skirt and perfectly small tube top. How that shit stayed on her was a fucking miracle, he was sure. "You show me what I'm doing. I'll follow your lead."

' _You'll follow my lead? Bend me over a fucking table with those sexy arms of yours…'_

Lucy blinked slowly and turned to put her back to the guild, returning to the position she'd gotten Sorano in before things had gone downhill. "Pop your ass," she slurred.

"Anything else?"

"Nope. Just constant ass pops. Any way you move, more ass pops."

Cobra chuckled and got into the same position as the blonde, squatting low and arching his back slightly. He could already feel sweat forming on his brow from how fucking hot it was on the stage, and ran his hands over his face and up through his hair before setting them on his thighs.

The song changed after a few, surprisingly, successful attempts at moving for the Poison Slayer. And really, Lucy wanted to see just how much she could get him to do.

What she hadn't counted on was Cobra being able to hear her damn soul. Every time she would start to move, he would do it too. Every swirl of her hips, alternating between high and low movements. Every damn hair flip, he copied.

Lucy brought her arms up, with Cobra doing the same as though they had practiced for weeks.

A series of wild catcalls rang out through the guild as both mages' turned up the intensity of their movements. Chests making a wide rotation, followed by their hips. Hands in their hair, bodies rolling from their shoulders down, two pairs of hands gliding sensually down to their hips.

It wasn't lost on anyone that Cobra was the one up on the stage with Lucy - although, why the two were up there and dancing, no one knew - but the fact that his tank top was flying off between one moment and the next had several women in the guild nearly swooning from a distance.

Cobra, for his part, was lost in the way the music thumped in time with Lucy's soul. How each note would echo through the blonde and ripple in a splash of color that sent her body into action. She was quite literally working on instinct, just feeling the music and letting it move her. And while he would have loved listening only to her soul, he couldn't help but hear the others that were surrounding them.

' _Fuck, look at him move…'_

' _His ass! Oh my god, his ass!'_

' _That's it, jiggle that ass, Cobra… Oh my god, I can't believe I just thought that…'_

Cobra smirked and reached over, dragging Lucy over so her back was pressed to his chest. She didn't seem to notice, or mind, when he simply continued moving along with her. Every roll of her hips was mimicked by the Poison Slayer. Even when she dropped down and ground her hips back, he was right there.

' _Who knew he could move his hips like that!'_

Lucy grinned and leaned her head back on his shoulder as Cobra's hands slid down the length of her arms, her hips moving of their own accord against him. She gasped as she felt one hand tightly gripping her hip while the other pushed her shoulders forward. Without hesitating, Lucy bent over and circled her hips, then rolled her body back towards him.

Cobra growled softly as her hands found their way into his hair, and grinned as Lucy finally spun around to face him.

Well, he _was_ grinning until her boot caught on his foot and he tripped. With his single eye widening in shock, Cobra fell backwards, with the blonde in his arms going right along with him as he toppled off the stage.

The last thing he'd expected, however, was for Lucy to laugh as soon as they'd hit the ground and dive down to kiss him.

Or for her to taste so goddamn good.

' _Holy shit, Lucy and Cobra?!'_

' _Wow… That's… wow…'_

Hands freely roaming, Lucy traced each and every muscle she could, marvelling at the way his skin puckered over what she already knew were scars across his stomach and chest. His tongue flicked across her lips, and a quiet moan spilled from the blonde as she deepened the kiss.

For the first time in a long while, the other souls around Cobra faded into the background until he was only hearing the wild purrs and clashing colors and songs within the blonde whose ass was very suddenly filling his hands. He hadn't realized she was straddling him until he pushed her hips down and found her grinding shamelessly over his growing arousal.

Lucy moaned and arched her back, pushing herself more firmly into his strong hands only to have the Poison Slayer forcing herself back down to his hips. She could taste the acetone he'd been drinking all night, and a hint of something darker as her tongue curled around his. Seconds drew out into what felt like hours. The rumbling growl that vibrated through her lips from the mage below her had Lucy wondering if time had really slowed to a crawl when she felt it seeping into her bones.

Neither mage was aware of the amount of eyes that were trained on them as Cobra rolled to lie on top of Lucy. When Jellal and Erza decided to brave both Cobra's and Lucy's wraths, respectively, they came forward slowly and paused as Lucy's arms wound around the Poison Slayer's back, her fingers digging into the scars from a whip that were now visible.

Cobra absently swatted away the hands that he knew weren't Lucy's, groaning when her leg hooked over his hip and pulled him closer.

"Someone should, uh… get Freed," Bickslow muttered, blinking in surprise as the guild's Celestial mage let out a wanton moan that was barely muffled by Cobra attacking her already swollen lips more fiercely. If anyone could get the two to some privacy, Freed could. Bickslow already knew that he would just write some runes to send Lucy and Cobra back to her apartment. This wasn't the first time they'd done it for the blonde while she was drunk, but it _was_ the first time she was going to be teleported with someone on top of her. "Preferably _before_ they start fucking."

* * *

Cobra's eye slid open slowly and he groaned at the shaft of light that pierced his fucking retina. His mouth was dry and his mind was muddled and foggy. And fuck, his head was killing him. Movement beneath him caught his attention, and he frowned while trying to listen in and see whose soul it was. Why he wasn't pulling away, he could only attribute to the fact that he had no fucking energy whatsoever.

' _Fuck, I drank too much last night…'_

He let out a snort at the errant thought coming from the woman whose neck he buried his face in, and when she moved again, her legs sliding sluggishly over his, he came to realize that he was nestled in her sex. And that his whole fucking body was sore.

"Cobra?" Lucy whispered, her voice hoarse and rasping. "What are you doing in my bed?"

"Sleep-fucking you, apparently," he whispered.

Lucy frowned in confusion, then gasped as his hips shifted, pushing forward to bury himself more deeply in her. "F-Fuck…"

"Yeah."

"Are you…"

"I have no idea if I'm gonna keep fucking you," he smirked. With his next breath, he could smell the amount of alcohol and sweat on her skin. What really caught his attention though was the amount of his poison that was coating her flesh. How she wasn't dead, he wasn't entirely sure, but he didn't care all that much right then. The point was that he wasn't balls deep in a corpse.

He would have hated explaining that to anyone.

"Seems legit," she sighed. At least he wasn't moving. She was surprisingly comfortable. Lucy knew she should have cared that Cobra was lying on top of her, mostly hard and still inside of her, but she was still having a hard time figuring out how the hell they'd ended up in bed together in the first place.

"You will be happy to know that you've got the honor of being my first drunk fuck."

"Wonderful… You're number…"

"Six, at least," he chuckled. When her hand lazily flopped up from the bed to smack his ass, then simply shifted up to rest on the small of his back, Cobra hummed softly against her flesh. "Damn, you smell good."

"I'm sweaty," she yawned.

"Good sweaty." Really, the Celestial mage smelled divine. Old sweat or not, he was more than willing to lick her from head to toe. Then again, maybe that was why there was so much poison on her skin... He'd most likely done just that at some point the night before.

Still, he was having just as hard a time remembering what they'd been doing the night before that had resulted in him getting Fairy Tail's Celestial mage naked beneath him. He remembered drinking acetone, the guild starting up a party, Sorano trying to dance with Lucy. Then only flashes of her grinding on him in the guild, then her screaming his name once they were in her bed after he'd ripped her clothes off.

"Are you even wearing a condom?"

"Not a clue," he mumbled. "But, if I was, I'll probably have to fish that shit out of you now." He flexed his hips experimentally, letting out a low groan as her lips instantly locked onto his shoulder in a wanting, open-mouthed kiss. "Doesn't feel like I'm wearing one."

"Well, unless you had any on you last night, you didn't use one. I've been out for weeks."

"Nope."

She smiled as his lips trailed up her throat and over her jaw, then slowly turned her head to look up into his tired indigo eye as he peered down at her. "Morning."

"Afternoon."

Lucy giggled softly, then bit her lip in indecision as she tried to decide if it was a good idea to kiss him. Morning breath notwithstanding - because Lucy was suddenly realizing that his breath smelled incredibly sweet - she didn't know if Cobra was one of the many people out there that was just looking for a quick lay. Hell, that's how she was more often than not.

Then again, she didn't usually have whoever it was in her bed the next morning.

Cobra rolled his eye and leaned down to gently kiss the blonde, smirking into her suddenly pliant lips when her hands trailed over his skin and up into his hair. "You touch my ears, and I _will_ be fucking you again," he rasped against her lips.

"Sensitive?"

"Extremely."

Lucy's eyes flashed with excitement when his head lifted, and she ran her fingers over the tips of his pointed ears. The resulting growl from the Poison Slayer, and how his hips surged forward was enough for her to realize he wasn't lying.

"I don't lie," he groaned. He didn't have a whole lot in the way of energy, but he was going to make due with what he had. And, if that meant a slow round of sex with his lips hardly leaving hers for more than a second, then he was more than fine with it. It was a first for him, but he just couldn't bring himself to care all that much.

"Mmm, Erik," Lucy moaned softly.

" _Call me Erik," he groaned as she bounced wildly on top of him. "F-Fuck, pop that ass!"_

Cobra smirked at the small memory that fluttered through her head, his hips rolling while he kept moving. When Lucy began wondering if it was even alright to still call him that, he nipped at her earlobe and hissed, "Yes. In private."

Lucy smiled and let her eyes slide closed, basking in the pleasure that was rippling through her body with each slow, deep thrust.

* * *

Well after lunchtime in the guild, Cobra and Lucy showed up. Thankfully, someone had taken the time to bring the pile of clothing he'd left at his table to her apartment, leaving it in a heap on the blonde's couch. They were both showered, feeling a little more refreshed, and had, at some point, come to a silent agreement of exclusivity with one another. As far as he could remember, it was while she was pinned to the wall of the shower and screaming his name. Or maybe it was while they were getting dressed. He couldn't be sure.

Cobra also realized that part of the reason he was so damn sore was because Lucy, oddly enough, was a biter. His chest was sporting quite a few bite marks, some of which had broken the skin. Then again, so was she.

And then, once the doors opened, with Cobra's hand gently holding Lucy's - because he fucking could, goddamnit - the two were greeted with a whole ten seconds of silence.

And then hushed chaos rung out through the building.

Apparently, they weren't the only ones still sporting hangovers.

The two made their way back over to Crime Sorciere's table, and Lucy laughed when Cobra pulled her down onto his lap and rested his head on her chest as her legs draped sideways over his. She wasn't normally one for public displays of affection but she could only assume that, based on the knowing looks everyone in the guild was giving them, there was no keeping her night with him a secret. Then again, she didn't really feel like keeping it a secret, as long as he didn't either; which, she could only assume was the case.

"What's this I hear about a fucking recording, Jellal?" Cobra groaned.

"Well…"

Lucy looked down to the table when Mira stopped at her side, setting a strawberry smoothie in front of her, and a second deep purple smoothie for Cobra. "Thanks, Mira."

"No problem, Lucy."

"So, someone was recording the party?" Lucy asked.

Mira nodded and pulled a lacrima out from her pocket. "Master insisted so we could start figuring out who owes what when damages get out of hand. And because I like making compilations."

' _More like ship-clips, you fucking lunatic,'_ Lucy thought, still smiling tiredly up at the barmaid.

Cobra snorted and nuzzled Lucy's neck. "You have no idea how right you are," he whispered into her ear.

"I'm guessing you don't remember what happened last night?" Sorano asked, a teasing smile fighting its way onto her lips.

"Aside from waking up with Cobra literally inside of me this morning," Lucy laughed. "Not a clue."

"I was going for a damn chestburster," he muttered.

"Dick-first," she added.

Mira set the lacrima on the table and grinned down at the blonde- and maroon-haired couple. "Well, take a look. It was quite the party."

Lucy rolled her eyes and leaned forward to take a sip of her smoothie, glancing at Cobra when he did the same. "What flavor is that?"

"Nightshade berries and creme."

"You're so fucking weird," she giggled. When he simply shrugged, she activated the lacrima, nearly dropping it when she saw just what she was sure everyone else was remembering from the night before.

" _Oh my god, look at Cobra dance!"_

 _The Poison Slayer dropped down into a split, bouncing his ass just like the blonde mage beside him._

" _He's a sassy one!"_

" _Twenty jewels they start making out."_

" _Lu's so sexy when she cuts loose."_

 _Lucy and Cobra's heads whipped to one side, their bodies following in a sensual roll. Her eyes were closed and her lips were parted on what looked to be a moan._

" _Wow, Cana."_

" _Fuck you, Bix," Cana laughed. "You know just as well as I do, that she's sexy."_

"Oh my god… I didn't…" Lucy whimpered, her eyes widening at the sight of her ass shaking like there was no tomorrow on the stage she vaguely remembered from the night before. It was mortifying seeing herself, but Cobra… Good lord did he look good. _'And I got to have sex with him. Oh my god, he took his shirt off! Ahh!'_

"You were feeling my naked self up, like… an hour ago," Cobra whispered, staring in horror at the lacrima. "Why the fuck are you squealing about my shirt coming off?"

"Because you look like a sexy stripper," Lucy said absently.

"How did I even… What the fuck am I doing?"

 _Cobra's hips swirled from one side to the other, then he dropped into a low squat. Still moving from side to side, his ass bounced like there was no tomorrow. The dimples on his lower back glistened with sweat, his scars fully visible. His hands lifted and pushed his hair from his face, then his back arched at the same time as Lucy's._

Sorano laughed and shook her head. "Lucy was trying to teach me how to dance, and you were being a prick about my apparent lack of coordination. So, she made you dance instead."

"How can you even move like that?" Jellal asked warily. Really, it was pretty damn impressive, even he could admit that. Surprising as hell, for sure, considering Cobra had been getting really into the music and making some of the strangest (only because it _was_ Cobra) 'fuck me' faces while he danced his ass off. Surprising, but no less impressive.

 _Lucy whirled around to face Cobra, their lips only inches apart and her breasts pinned between them. He stumbled only a moment later, dragging her along as he fell off the stage._

Cobra chuckled at the sight of Lucy laughing and kissing him. His eye never left the lacrima while he answered Jellal's question. "Because I'm a sexy bitch that knows how to work it."

" _Freed! Get them to her house. I'm pretty sure I just saw her thong land on Pepe!"_

" _Hell yeah it did! Sexy little wench!" the little totem crooned._

" _Oh my. Just a moment," Freed said, clearing his throat and drawing his sword to write the appropriate runes._

"Well, that explains everything," Lucy sighed as she set the lacrima back down.

"The recording or me being a sexy bitch?" And now Cobra understood more of why his body was hurting. He was sure whatever muscles he'd used to dance that way had never been used before. How he'd gotten his body to move like that in the first place, he wasn't sure. The Poison Slayer was positive that he'd never been that flexible.

She turned to smile down in response to Cobra's smug grin. "Both."

"So," Mira said, never having left her spot next to the table. Her eyes glimmered when she watched the new couple share a small, tender kiss. "When's the wedding?"

"Before she pops out my little one," Cobra answered, groaning as Lucy pulled him into another, longer kiss, most likely not having heard his answer.

"Wh-What?" Mira blinked.

Lucy pulled back from his lips, laughing as a loud thud echoed through the hall. She looked down to see Mira had collapsed with hearts in her eyes, then turned a playful glare to Cobra. "Not nice."

He only shrugged. "Got her off our asses."

"And when you leave, I'll be hearing a million questions about both babies and weddings. She's gonna hound me until I've lost my mind."

"Just cry," he whispered, a malicious grin on his face. "Because if you say that you're missing me, and thinking about that shit while I'm not there just upsets you more, she'll back the fuck off."

"How can you be so sure?" she laughed quietly.

"I can hear her soul, beautiful. You listen to me, and you'll have nothing to worry about."

The rest of Crime Sorciere was left sitting with their mouths agape as Lucy giggled again and nipped at Cobra's lips. He was the furthest thing from a cuddler as a person could get - several of them knew from experience, having seen him with other women before - but this...

They had no idea what to think.

Cobra, on the other hand, was just enjoying the calm before the storm as he and Lucy sat and drank their smoothies. Because, he was going to have to figure out how the hell he should explain the dark crimson scales he'd found on the back of her neck just beneath her hair while they were showering. _'Well, looks like I'm mated… Guess I'm not going anywhere.'_ He had a vague memory from the night before of biting Lucy there. And then of her biting his forearm where there was now a small cluster of golden stars that were nearly invisible in comparison to his darker complexion.

When two plates of food came to the table, his arm wrapped around her waist a little more tightly when he heard that she was planning on sitting next to him to eat. Once she was settled again, Cobra's eye closed as her fingers threaded through his hair and lightly trailed over his scalp while they ate. If things were going to be like this, he was sure he wouldn't have a problem sticking around with the blonde.

Then again, based on the odd looks coming from the other Dragon Slayers, and the fact that they could smell the damn pheromones of her being freshly mated, Cobra was sure he wouldn't have been able to leave even if he wanted to.

 _ **.The End.**_

* * *

 **And there's Day 7! I hope you all liked this one!**

 **Honestly there were a bunch of songs that I had in my head for Cobra and Lucy dancing. Feel free to picture any song you can twerk to for it. The main one I had in mind was** _ **'So Mi Like It'**_ **by Spice.**

 **Oddly enough,** _ **'Nobody'**_ **by Skindred was my second choice lol.**

 **Also,** _ **'Bang Bang'**_ **by Jessie J, et. al.**

 **So, because my original challenge for this was cancelled, I created a new one for myself. I tried to keep this under 5k. Oh well. It's just barely over 6k! Close enough! And then, after _LittlePrincessNana_ wrote for today, I was already well over the challenge, and there's just no way I can even try to get this under her word count. Maybe next time! :D**

 **I'll see you all tomorrow for the final (bonus) day of CoLu Week 2016…**

 _ **Day 8: Aurora**_

 **So, Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika**


	9. We All Have a Story to Tell

**A/N: Welcome to the end of CoLu Week 2016, everyone. It's been quite the ride, hasn't it? Not a whole lot to say right now, so let's just get to the bonus day!**

 **So, without further ado, I give you…**

 **Day 8: Aurora**

* * *

 _ **We All Have a Story to Tell**_

* * *

Cobra grinned as he gazed down at the beautiful woman in his arms, gently pushing her back onto the bed they shared whenever he was able to return to Magnolia for a visit. He hated more and more that Crime Sorciere kept him away from her, and tonight would be the night where he asked her to make a choice. It was simple, really, and he didn't mind either way what her answer was.

Well, he definitely minded if she accepted his marriage proposal, but after that… It was easy.

Should he stay with Crime Sorciere, and have her join him? Or did she want to stay with Fairy Tail, and have him finally settle down in a more stable life? He didn't care if the latter was what she wanted. He knew they were her family, and if she wasn't ready to leave them to be with just him and Crime Sorciere, then he understood. Just we long as they were together.

"Mmm, Erik…"

He loved the sight of her chest heaving as his fingers dipped beneath her panties, how her eyes darkened while he slid them down her legs. The love he had for her was something he'd never thought he would experience. The fact that she loved him so fiercely in return made him ache for her more and more every time they were separated.

"I love you," he whispered against her kiss-swollen lips. She didn't say it back, and instead just smiled at him while her fingers sifted through his hair. He knew she loved him, though. Every time they were reunited after being separated for months, she would come rushing into his arms with the brightest smile he'd ever been gifted with.

This time was no different, but she'd been unusually quiet. More like her behavior when they had first decided to become a couple.

His clothes were already long gone, having been discarded in favor of pulling his radiant girlfriend - and hopefully, fiancée - to the bed and treating every inch of her pale flesh to the most lavish worship he could manage. And now that he'd kissed her from head to toe and back again, Cobra wanted nothing more than to sink into her heat and let himself get lost for hours. Days, even.

It was as his fingers traced their way up her slender thighs, his lips seeking hers out once again as her body writhed wantingly beneath him, that something crashed into his head. A memory that he knew wasn't his own, that burned through his gut and had him drawing back with a frown.

" _N-Natsu… Harder!" Her head tipped back and she threw out an arm to knock down the frame on her nightstand, holding an image of herself and Cobra while they sat in the forest. She couldn't look at his tender smile right then. He was gone, and she didn't know when he would be back for her. "Oh god, Natsu!"_

"K-Kina?" Cobra whimpered, his eye widened at the flush on her cheeks and the suddenly spooked look she was giving him. "What…"

' _No… He wasn't supposed to find out! Oh god… Lock it up, Kinana! Don't let him hear…'_

He could hear her soul sectioning itself, just the way he'd taught her before when she needed to keep a secret from him - because she'd wanted to give him a surprise for once in his life that he enjoyed. This, though… He couldn't have heard it right. For the first time in his miserable life, Cobra found himself questioning his magic.

Still, as he hovered over the woman he loved, his natural need for knowledge forced his magic out. To delve further into her soul. It was a promise he'd made to himself, and to her, when they were finally reunited after seven years of separation, that he would never dig around in Kinana's soul like this. But he couldn't stop himself, and he found, as more memories surfaced, he didn't want to.

 _*.*_

 _Fiery lips nearly burned her as they set on a searing path down the column of her throat. "N-Natsu… You're so warm…" Erik never kissed her like this, making her toes curl and her head fall into a haze._

 _*.*_

 _She let out a slow, lonely breath while watching his maroon hair disappear down the worn trail leading away from her little cabin. He would be gone for three months. He left her so often, only stealing short moments when he had the time. Turning back to the door, Kinana found herself smiling when she saw a head of salmon hair bobbing in the tree line, coming from the opposite direction. Natsu was on his way to the lake to catch some fish for their dinner. He would wait to come over until Erik was miles away, unable to hear them._

 _*.*_

" _Kinana, you should just tell him that you're not happy," Natsu frowned as they laid panting in his hammock._

" _It would kill him, Natsu," she sighed. "Erik… He needs me."_

" _Are you sure about that? All you ever say about him is how he keeps trying to relive the past, and how he's probably just using you while he's in town."_

" _He says he loves me."_

" _But you don't love him."_

 _Slowly, she shook her head, resting it on his overly warm chest. "No… I just… I don't want to hurt him."_

" _Well, he'll hear it eventually. Cobra's always digging in people's souls."_

 _A sad smile touched her lips. "He swore he wouldn't do that to me," she whispered. "Erik trusts me."_

" _And you're here with me instead…"_

" _You're one to talk. Isn't Lucy waiting for you to show up at her apartment?"_

 _He chuckled and wrapped his arm more tightly around her. "Luce knows I just come and go whenever. Things are... different... with us."_

 _She sighed then, rolling so she was straddling the Fire Dragon Slayer. "Enough about him," she rasped. "We still need to eat lunch." She only had a few hours before he would be in Magnolia again, and she didn't want to waste it with guilt._

 _*.*_

" _Cu_ _, I'm home!"_

 _She smiled while scrubbing Natsu's scent from her skin, the steaming water not even bothering her since she'd just been with her fiery lover. "In the shower! You're early!"_

 _Cobra chuckled as he made his way into the bathroom. The soft shuffle of clothing could barely be heard over the streaming water, then he was stepping in behind her. His arms wound around her waist, pressing his naked chest to her back. "I missed you so much, Cu."_

 _She giggled and turned in his arms. "I missed you too, Erik. I always do."_

 _His nose wrinkled as she leaned up for a kiss. "You reek of Salamander." She frowned, fear trickling down her spine, but after only a moment, he rolled his eye and pulled the loofah from her hand to help clean her. "Did his dumbass trample you in the guild again?"_

 _Kinana bit her lip, burying her nose against his neck. "You could say that," she whispered. Cobra didn't need to know that Natsu had dragged her to the women's locker room and fucked her in a shower stall._

" _I should beat his ass," Cobra growled. "Touching my woman…"_

" _I hate it when you talk like that," she frowned._

 _Instantly, Cobra paused, his eye widened only slightly while looking down at her. "You know I don't mean it that way…"_

" _Don't call me 'your woman'," Kinana sighed._

" _Hey," he whispered. "I'm sorry, alright? You're my girlfriend. Beautiful and perfect and so fucking sweet. I… I love you, Kina. I just… I miss you so much when I'm gone. I feel like you hate me for it, and… I just want you to know, I hate leaving as much as you do… I'm sorry…"_

 _She sighed and pulled his head to her shoulder while his arms wrapped around her more tightly. "It's okay, Erik. You're home now." She would just have to find some way to let him down easily. Hopefully, without him finding out about Natsu._

 _*.*_

Cobra scrambled off of the purple-haired woman faster than he'd ever moved in his life. His heart pounded painfully in his chest and acid burned at the back of his throat. "Y-You… No."

"Erik," she whispered, sitting up and pulling the blanket to her chest. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" he asked softly. "You're fucking _sorry_?! You… Kina… What the hell did you do?!"

She leaned forward, trying to reach out to him, then drew back when he snarled and smacked her hand away. "Erik, I can explain!"

"I don't need your shitty explanation!" he roared, moving to his clothes and pulling everything on with trembling hands. "I fucking trusted you! You… Y-You can't fucking lie to me!"

"Erik-"

"No! Not to you!" His single eye glinted dangerously as he turned to face her again. "I was a fucking idiot for trusting you," he spat. "You want him, then… Fine. Fucking have him! I never did it for you anyway, right?"

"Please," she said desperately, her voice catching on a sob at the sight of tears welling in his eye. "It just happened, okay? And then, you were gone for so long all the time, and… I never felt like you cared about me!"

"Bullshit!" he bellowed. "I did _everything_ for you! I would have given you the fucking world on a goddamn platter! And if all you'd fucking wanted was to live in this cabin and have a fucking f-family… Live like we didn't have magic… I-I would have!"

"But, I _don't_ have magic!"

"I know that! I would have given up using my magic in a fucking heartbeat if you wanted!"

"And… do you know that I'm not a snake anymore? We can't go back to that, Erik. You always call me... _that_... And you know I hate it."

He growled and clenched his fists, fury lurking just beneath his skin. He wasn't sure which was making him shake more, the anger that she would accuse him of wanting her to be cursed as a fucking snake, or the pain from what he'd learned. "I loved you, no matter what you looked like," he hissed. "But that's not what this is about…"

She shied away from the Poison Slayer when he stalked over to her, clenching her eyes shut as he reached into his pocket. A terrified whimper crept up her throat when she felt his strong hand wrapping around her chin, how much he was shaking, as he turned her to face him again.

"Take a look," he sneered, his hand tightening around the ring box when her jade eyes snapped open. "You tamed me, _Kinana_. Had me so over the fucking moon that I didn't suspect a f-fucking thing."

"E-Erik, you weren't…" Her head swam at the sight of the simple silver band with a small diamond nestled in the black velvet box. "No…"

"Oh, I fucking was," he hissed, snapping the box closed and shoving it back into his pocket. "I've spent my whole goddamn life just w-waiting to hear your voice, and now… Two fucking years… A-And…"

She sucked in a sharp breath as the tears in his eye finally spilled over. The fire was still burning brilliantly in his gaze, but the way he was shaking, how his full lips trembled... _'I never wanted to hurt him like this.'_

"T-Too fucking late for that!"

"Erik, don't go!" she called out as he turned and stormed over to her bedroom door. "Let's just talk-"

"Fuck you, you goddamn slut!" he shouted back. "You're dead to m-me!"

He ran out of the cabin, barely remembering to grab his jacket, boots and lacrima. He knew that Jellal would call when it was time for everyone to meet up and head out again, but this time… Cobra hadn't planned on answering the call. He'd been ready to give everything up to be with Kinana.

The only time in his life that Cobra had placed unconditional trust in someone, had been when he was still in the Tower. He'd never questioned the trust he had for Cubellios, and in turn, Kinana. They had always been one and the same to him.

But as he ran through the woods, unsure of where to go, Cobra found himself looking back on the time he'd spent with Kinana. He questioned whether or not she was really the woman that was once his only friend.

' _Did I just try to force us to work… because she was Cubellios?'_

She didn't even remember him. Kinana didn't recall a single thing about their history together, and every time he tried to jog her memory a little bit, she would get upset. At first, he thought it was giving her headaches, and he'd tried to be understanding, but then she would just get angry over it.

Kinana would tell him to stop living in the past, that she just wanted to move forward from where they were. And he'd been stupid enough to think she was talking about his own sins. Every mistake he'd made up until that point.

This was what he got for letting himself fall for someone, though. He wasn't meant to be accepted. Never meant to be loved.

' _She was only ever with me out of convenience. Even as a snake… I protected her, so she…'_

Cobra snarled as he found himself standing on the roof of a building. He clutched tightly at his hair, sinking to his knees and ignoring the late December chill in the air.

He was just a tool for her. For everyone.

And the worst part of it all was that the joke was on him. He should have heard something, _anything_ , from her. From Natsu. His magic had failed him when he'd needed it the most, to keep his heart protected the one time he decided to try giving it to another.

"Wh-Why am I n-not good enough…"

He wanted to be angry at Natsu, but hearing her memories, seeing the way the Fire Slayer looked at her when they were together, and hearing the bastard telling her to just come clean about it all… For some reason he couldn't be angry. Not at Natsu.

For once, the bastard was in the clear. Because, when he'd gotten to the root of what she had done, Cobra had heard the truth of it all.

She had pursued Natsu, not the other way around. She had told him that she was lonely, and lied while saying she and Cobra had an open relationship. Kinana wasn't the woman he'd thought she was, and the Poison Slayer was left clueless about what to do next.

Normally, it would have been simple. He could just kill her. But his fucking heart, the crusty little bastard, had gotten involved well before he even knew what love was, when he was just a child.

And maybe it was some weird Oedipus shit, but Cubellios had been just as much a parent as she'd been his friend. But now he knew the truth. Cubellios was dead. There was no bringing back the friend he'd once had. No way to reconnect on that deeper level they'd shared for most of his life.

His head lifted and he turned sharply as a thick blanket was laid over his shoulders. "What…" His words died in his throat at the sight of Fairy Tail's blonde Celestial mage, wearing a thick, fuzzy pink bathrobe with matching slippers.

With a tender smile, Lucy knelt down next to him and held out one of the mugs of hot cocoa she'd brought up to the roof with her. "Here," she whispered. "You look like you could use this."

Quaking, deeply tanned hands curved around the mug, making Cobra realize just how fucking cold it actually was outside. "H-How did you…"

"Well," she sighed, taking a small sip of her own cocoa and closing her eyes as a mostly melted marshmallow floated between her lips. "I've got this horrible habit of keeping my window open, even when it's this cold out… So… I might have heard… a familiar voice."

He sniffled and roughly swiped the tears from his cheek. The fact that she didn't say she heard him bawling like a fucking baby was both a relief and just embarrassing. Painfully so. "Well, I-I'm good, so…"

Lucy shook her head when he tried to hand the mug back to her. "Nah, you'll have to drink that. I put a little rat poison in it."

He blinked and frowned down at the mug, then looked at hers. They were completely identical, even down to the marshmallows. "Why?"

"Because marshmallows in cocoa is a requirement," Lucy giggled.

"The poison…"

"Because you're a Poison Slayer," she smiled. They sat in silence for several minutes, with Lucy adjusting to get a little more comfortable and reaching up to wrap the blanket a little more securely around Cobra's still shaking shoulders. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked gently. "I'm a good listener."

Cobra hadn't interacted with the blonde all that much when he and the others visited Magnolia. Usually, he spent time at the bar, watching Kinana work, then made his way to her house so he could get as much quality time with her as possible.

He didn't know Lucy all that well, but he could hear that she was sincere in wanting to know what had happened and that she was worried about him.

Why, he wasn't sure, but Cobra also didn't know if he wanted to tell her.

' _But, she's with Natsu… She deserves to know what he's doing behind her fucking back…'_

"Kinana and Natsu are fucking," he finally replied, ignoring the tremor in his pained voice. "They've been doing that shit for months…"

Lucy nodded and let out a heavy sigh. "You… just found out then."

He turned to glare at her, his lip curling in anger and his tongue poised to rip into her. But then he heard her soul, just the smallest whisper of a thought that had him pausing with a frown.

' _I figured Natsu was seeing someone else. We just never clicked… I should be upset with him for cheating on me, but… Why would she do that to Cobra? I thought she loved him…'_

When he dug a little deeper, he came to realize that Lucy was only with Natsu because of Mira. The little demon matchmaker had hounded the two until they finally decided to just date one another so that she would leave them the hell alone about becoming an item.

Lucy and Natsu didn't kiss. They'd tried it a handful of times, but it was just weird. She wasn't attracted to the Fire Slayer in the slightest. Oddly enough, Lucy had never been attracted to anyone, and her first and only relationship was a complete sham. She didn't even seem to care one bit about Natsu being with Kinana, aside from the fact that Cobra was hurting over it. What upset her was that Natsu and Kinana had lied instead of just coming clean and having the barmaid break it off with the Poison Slayer.

Finally, Cobra nodded. "Yeah. I heard her thinking about him… And…" He sighed and took a sip of the cocoa, his eye sliding closed as it tried in vain to warm his frozen innards. He was too far gone though. There was just nothing left for him anymore. "You said you put rat poison in this?" It was the perfect amount, too. Just enough that he could taste it, but not so much that it overpowered the cocoa and marshmallows.

Lucy smiled when he glanced at her, taking another sip from his mug. "Yeah. I couldn't bring myself to put bleach in it. And Natsu put the rat poison next to my hot cocoa mix anyway, so…"

"He's a fucking moron," he growled. "How have you not fucking died yet?"

A sly grin pulled at her lips. "I'm the luckiest son of a bitch ever, apparently. Or unluckiest… depending on the day… and your definition of lucky."

Conversation dwindled into utter silence as they sipped at their drinks and looked out across Magnolia, the starlit sky blanketing the city in a gentle darkness.

Lucy didn't mind that he wasn't talking to her. Cobra never really seemed like one for opening up, but she just wanted him to know that there was someone he could talk to about whatever was on his mind. Even if they were completely silent, she would sit by him and give him a little extra support.

* * *

It was nearly sunrise by the time either mage spoke again. Lucy had left the comfort of her warm apartment at nearly midnight, having been more than ready to go to sleep, but when she'd heard Cobra sobbing on the roof, there hadn't been anything she could do to stop herself from going to him.

But he was silent the whole while, simply staring out across the darkened city and up at the stars. And really, Lucy didn't mind it all that much. It was the first time in a long while that she'd been up to look at the stars, mainly because she did rather like having someone with her while she was doing it. The last person that had sat with her like this was her mother, and that… Well, it was bittersweet, to say the least.

Just as the sky began to lighten, announcing the rising of the sun, she smiled. "Do you know about mythology, Cobra?" she whispered.

He shook his head just enough for her to catch it. "Never cared."

Her eyes caught on the first rays of light that streaked over the distant horizon. "There are legends," she whispered, "Of gods and goddesses that control the earth with live on. The air we breathe. They bring wars and peace, turn the tides of battle. Exact vengeance and breathe new life into our world, and everything in between."

He slowly turned his head to look at the blonde. He thought that he'd made it clear he didn't give a shit. Why the hell would she start talking about mythology all of a sudden? She hadn't needed to stay up there with him. Hell, he could hear how tired she was. He could see it in the bags under her eyes and the way her eyelids closed ever-so-slowly on each blink.

And there, on her lips, was the most serene smile he'd ever witnessed. Her soul was letting out only the simplest, most soothing waves of comfort, that he couldn't bring himself to say anything as she spoke again.

"One legend," she continued, not realizing that he was watching her, "Is of a beautiful goddess, named Aurora. Her brother, Sol, and sister, Luna, command the skies during the day and at night, but for a short while, Aurora flies across the sky and brings the dawn with her."

"Uh-huh." His eye cut down to the faint touch of her fingertips over the back of his hand, watching as her guildmark-covered hand slid slowly over his. How her pale skin starkly contrasted his own tan. She was refusing to look at him right then, but the fact that Lucy was still trying to comfort him - and that he knew that the blonde was seriously showing some restraint, since she was a hugger like no other - made Cobra oddly alright with the contact.

"Aurora is a symbol of renewal," she whispered with a soft sigh. "She signifies change, and gives all of us a reminder that… No matter how dark the night may be, there will always be someone there to return the light to our lives. The sun will always shine down on us again."

He frowned as he looked at the rising sun. He sure as hell didn't feel like the sun would ever shine down in his life again. Sure, the thing would rise and fall every damn day - apocalypse, notwithstanding - but Kinana was that single bright part of his life, and now she was gone.

Lucy let out a quiet laugh while shaking her head helplessly. "It's probably silly to you, though," she mused. "Stupid stories from some long lost world."

Really, she wasn't sure what she was expecting when deciding to come up and try to comfort him. She didn't know if Cobra even really wanted her there, and he was more than likely just hoping she would go home already. She wasn't sure what kind of person Cobra really was, since she'd hardly spoken two words to him after Crime Sorciere started coming to Magnolia to visit.

He'd always been so wrapped up in Kinana, and she didn't fault him for it after it came out that the purple-haired barmaid had once been his snake, Cubellios. He was looking for the connection he'd once had with her, and Lucy had been more than happy for the two when she'd heard they were an item.

But, he was hurting now and the blonde just wished she knew what to do to help him.

Cobra felt her fingers sliding away, and his hand instinctively flipped to press their palms together. For a breathless moment, they sat in silence, neither daring to move a muscle.

' _What's he doing?'_

Slowly, his fingers threaded between hers, curling around the thin digits that were more calloused than he would have imagined. He didn't look away from the horizon, even as Lucy mimicked his actions and gently held his hand.

Something as simple as this, he'd never done with Kinana. For hours, he'd been running through every aspect of their relationship, any and every mistake he'd made during the two years that his heart had truly belonged to her.

He came to the startling realization at some point that, while he'd showed her that he was physically attracted to her, and he told her how much he cared about her… While he'd done everything he could think of to show her that he loved her… It hadn't been enough.

He was too detached more often than not. No matter how much he would hold and kiss the green-eyed beauty while they were alone, he rarely let her touch him in public.

He was too guilty. Not just from the crimes he'd committed, but from the knowledge that he'd left her behind to fend for herself and she spent years not knowing who she was or where she'd been.

While Cobra hadn't really been able to help the whole getting arrested thing, he'd still left her behind. And when they finally reunited, they were both different.

It was obvious by that point that she wasn't his dearest friend any longer, but he had changed too. The time that he'd been without Cubellios, where he and the other member of the Neo-Oracion Seis had decided to throw the world into chaos… That had been the darkest time in his life. It had ruined him, that much he was sure of.

And even if she had remembered him, Cobra wasn't the same man that Cubellios had once known. Too much had gone wrong in his life, and he knew it was selfish to hope that she would have been willing to fix him. He wasn't heartless, but he didn't know how to love someone properly, it seemed. He had wanted to give her the world, anything she would have asked him for, but somehow, he'd still failed her.

' _I've always been a failure,'_ he thought hopelessly.

Lucy frowned when she heard a quiet sniffle from the Poison Slayer at her side, then bit her lip while turning to look at him. Her gaze instantly honed in on the velvet box she hadn't noticed him holding before. The little bit of light that glinted off a simple, but no less beautiful, engagement ring. "Cobra…"

"Give it to me straight, alright?" he whispered.

"Sure."

"I deserved it… D-Didn't I…"

"What?"

His hand shook slightly, but he wasn't sure if it was from the cold or from the dull throbs of pain in his soul, as he pulled the ring from the box. "I-I was never good enough for her… I-"

She turned to face him, placing her free hand over his where he held the ring while she crossed her legs to get more comfortable. His tear-filled indigo eye shot up to meet with hers. "Cobra, that's just not true," she whispered in earnest.

"It is though," he whimpered. Did he care right then that he was on the verge of bawling like a fucking baby all over again? A little bit, but not enough to try and stop. Or to put some distance between himself and Lucy. "I-I failed her… It's all I ever do…"

She brushed a thumb over his cheek to rid his slightly flushed skin of tears, a gentle smile on her lips when his eye widened. "I can't say I know why she did what she did, but… You're a good person. I know you are."

"What makes you say that?" he sniffled.

Her grip on his hand tightened only marginally. "Because no man that wanders around and collapses on a rooftop in tears, holding onto an engagement ring could be a bad guy," she whispered back.

"Then sh-she just didn't want a fucking monster like me…"

Lucy rolled her eyes and let out a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "If you were the monster people think you are, you wouldn't be here."

 _'He would be out slaughtering whole nations just because he could. Natsu would have been found dead. Or maybe just dismembered. Poisoned. Who knows… There are just so many options…'_

The fact that he chuckled quietly brought a wider smile to her lips.

Biting his lip, Cobra carefully turned to face the blonde, crossing his legs and resting his knees against hers. Lucy pulled the blanket a little more tightly around him before it could slip, and he looked down to watch as she pulled the ring from between his fingers and placed it back in the box. "What should I do with it?"

"I would say set it on fire, but…" She shrugged then. "Sell it to Gajeel? He'll take the diamond out then eat the ring, but still."

"I guess I'll just give it to Jellal," he whispered. "He'll know what to do with it…"

"Does he even know you were planning on proposing?"

Cobra shook his head. "No one did…"

"Why didn't you tell someone?" she asked curiously.

He shrugged then. "No one cared to know, I guess." They were silent for several moments, the sun climbing just a little higher in the sky and failing to warm the two mages all that much. Cobra was pulled from his roiling thoughts when he felt Lucy's fingers brushing over his hand again where they were clasped. "I…"

She returned her eyes to his face instead of studying his strong, calloused hands.

"I really like it when you tell stories," Cobra whispered.

Lucy laughed quietly as she squeezed his hands. "I've got tons of them."

"Maybe you'll tell me more sometime?" he smirked.

Her eyes widened slightly, her cheeks flushing. Without thinking, she nodded. "Only if you'll tell me a story or two in return," she shot back.

Cobra blinked in surprise. "You'd… want me to…"

Kinana always told him that, even though they had history, she only wanted to move forward and build their relationship from scratch. She didn't want to hear about the past, even though it was such a big part of why he was the way he was. Why he struggled with pushing out the souls around him from time to time. Why he clung to her at night when they were together. Why he still called her Cubellios sometimes.

Their past was important, to him. But Kinana hadn't wanted to know about it. She told Cobra to stop living in the past, to leave it where it belonged.

And, even though he'd tried telling her one night that he just wanted someone to listen to what he had to say… She'd rolled over and gone to sleep. He had chalked it up to her having quite literally started her period as soon as they had gotten out of the shower.

"Tell me all the stories you know," Lucy laughed. "Anything. Everything."

"What about?"

"Well…" Her blush deepened slightly as she continued looking into his curiously gleaming eye. "Your story is a start. You probably already know mine, hearing my soul and all that…"

"Pretty much," he nodded. All he got in return was a tender smile, full of hope. He looked down and finally dropped the ring box to take hold of her other hand. When he heard the silence that took over her soul, and the way her heart stuttered for a moment, he couldn't help but shake his head. "You're a weird one, y'know that?"

"Yeah," she laughed. "I've heard that quite a bit since joining Fairy Tail."

Their heads turned as one to watch the sun fully cresting the horizon. The last thing Cobra had expected was to have spent an entire night sitting on a roof with Fairy Tail's Celestial mage.

"I'd say this tops my list of weirdness, though," Lucy whispered, turning to look at him again.

The way the golden rays of the sun made Cobra glow nearly knocked the wind out of her. She had never really taken the time to look at him before, but right then, with the bright blue sky above them, the soft golden glow hovering just above the horizon, and the clouds in the sky that were a tender shade of pink, highlighting the softer tones of his hair, she was coming to realize that he was, in fact, quite dashing.

And really, she had never thought that she would describe anyone as _dashing_. But the sun was making his darker skin look as though it was illuminated from within. She could see the small flecks of crimson in his only eye, dotting his iris and adding to what she suddenly realized was an exotic allure.

"I never thought I'd start the new year like this," Lucy finally whispered.

"Watching a sunrise with an ex-criminal?" he smirked. His head turned back toward the flushed blonde slowly as he listened to her silent appraisal of him.

She lifted their joined hands with a smirk of her own. "Watching the sunrise with a new friend," she corrected.

' _He's in no place for me to even think about hitting on him. I never thought I'd want to hit on him to begin with.'_

Cobra nearly let out a sigh of relief at the sudden thought from the blonde. He knew that just as well as she seemed to. He was in no way, shape, or form ready to think about anyone aside from Kinana. That woman had been his whole world. His reason for waking up every morning, for falling asleep at night with hopes for the next day.

' _Besides, I want to know who Cobra really is. I know the things he's done, but I don't care about that. He's different now than before. And… He seems like he just really needs a friend right now…'_

He blinked away the sudden burning tears in his eye, lowering his head only slightly and breaking away from her penetrating gaze. It was almost as though she was the one with the ability to hear souls. And fuck, did that freak him out a little.

When he thought about it, Lucy was someone that he never would have considered spending any time with anyway. But here she was, wanting to get to know him. She had been the target of a few attacks at his former guild's hands, and she wasn't focusing on that, but instead on all the things that she wanted to know.

And then there was the fact that he could easily see why anyone would want to be with her, whether it was platonic or romantic. He would have had to be a complete idiot not to notice how fucking nice she was. Or the fact that she was actually really fucking pretty with the sun shining down on her. It made him realize that Natsu was obviously a fucking idiot, to some extent. Then again, Cobra had only had eyes for Kinana - much like the Fire Slayer, apparently - so he was only just realizing what sort of treasure the blonde Fairy before him was.

He could see someone like Lucy being there for him, if he ever really allowed himself to open up again. _'But, she's right. It's too soon to think about that…'_ His heart had been shattered only hours before. He couldn't even think about trying to move on from the pain that Kinana had put him through.

"Hey, Mister Grumpy Gills," Lucy teased gently, her lips pursing into an exaggerated pout.

Cobra chuckled and lightly shoved her hands, keeping a hold of them as the blonde started to lose her balance. Luckily, she didn't fall backward, and he didn't topple over. Her hands gripped his and a bright peal of laughter split the sleepy dawn air while she struggled to stay sitting.

Once Lucy was in the proper position once again, she gave him a devious grin and tightened her grip on his hands.

"What the hell are you thinking?" he asked, cautiously eyeing the blonde.

With her head tilting from one side to the other, Lucy moved their hands in slow, alternating circles, almost as though they were dancing. "Just being a weirdo," she shrugged. "And dancing with you."

"I don't dance," he frowned. Cobra did nothing to stop her from continuing whatever the hell she was doing to the beat of some fucked up little tinkering music box song in her head.

"You do now," Lucy smirked. "See? Easy dancing. Pretty soon, I'll have you shaking your ass up on a stage."

"Only if I'm getting some bills in my fucking g-string," he chuckled.

"Well, of course," she scoffed. "One does not simply dance on a stage for free."

' _How the hell was she single before fucking Natsu came along?'_ He knew the answer to that one though. The blonde before him had never been attracted to anyone. It really did help to explain why she was a good friend for pretty much everyone she met though, since she wasn't concerned with anything but their friendship.

Lucy's smile softened when the smells coming from the bakery down the street wafted up through the air. "I love sunrises…"

Cobra chuckled at that. "Macbeth hates this time of day. It sucks all of his energy out."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "There was this one time…"

Lucy couldn't help but lean forward just a little bit as Cobra started really getting into the story of the time he and Sorano had superglued Macbeth's lips shut while he slept, because he'd passed out right at sunrise when they had woken up and wouldn't stop snoring.

And when one story led into another, Lucy found herself smiling as much as Cobra was. She knew from experience that all someone really needed was a shoulder to lean on, or someone to just listen to them when life decided to kick them in the teeth. And that, well that was something she would gladly do for the Poison Dragon Slayer. The way she saw it, he hadn't just lost his girlfriend, or the woman that he'd wanted to marry. He had lost his best friend.

She had no illusions of instantly becoming anything remotely close to that for Cobra, but she could still contentedly sit there on the roof of her apartment building with him. Holding his hands and making them dance, just because she could. She could laugh while he began guiding her hands and taking the lead, and give him a reason to smile at least for a little bit.

And even though she was sure that he didn't consider them friends as of yet, Lucy had a strong feeling they would be with time. Maybe there would be something more between them, but that wasn't her concern.

All she cared about was listening to Cobra's story.

What she didn't realize was just how much it meant to the Poison Dragon Slayer to finally have a person that cared about that in the first place.

 _ **.The End.**_

* * *

 **Thank you all so much for reading Day 8, and the other seven days for this week! It really was a great CoLu Week this year, and I can't tell you how much I've appreciated the reviews from you guys, and reading the entries you've written for these prompts!**

 **I can tell you that it was surprisingly difficult to make Cobra and Lucy** _ **not**_ **kiss in this one, because I just wanted them to be all super fluffy and cuddly. But, I like how it turned out. Especially since this is the first time that I've written an asexual character. Yes, I made Lucy asexual. Lots of thanks to _Dragonshost_ for supporting the idea (I love you, dude). I think I'll have to write something more with asexuality, because seriously... It's something I don't entirely understand, and I'd love to learn more. And the only way for me to really learn more about it is to force myself into that mindset while writing.**

 **Regardless, I hope you all enjoyed this week. I know that I sure did!**

 **CoLu Week 2016 is officially complete!**

 **So, Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika**


End file.
